The sights of Cornwall

I saw so much of Cornwall it needs it's own post! All thanks to my host Liz who took me to see places like the Minack Theatre and got me onto a bus tour around Land's End, and so many more things. It's so great to be able to stay with a local who knows the absolute best things that aren't to be missed.

The weather caved in on my trip down to Land's End and St. Ive's unfortunately, but at least it was just grey and misty rather than raining. It was a hop on-hop off bus that left from Penzance and went around the coast on the peninsula, stopping at a beach called Sennen Cove, Land's End, and a large fishing village called St. Ives. Thanks to a tip from Liz I knew to not get off at Land's End straight away, but to wait and get off at Sennen Cove. There was a great, easy cliff walk that was about 30mins that went back around the coast to Land's End where I could get the next bus. It was a beautiful cliff walk as it had great views of Land's End, and you could see things like an old shipwreck that you wouldn't have seen coming from the other direction. It's fun to say I've been to Land's End! Though it's very touristy and geared towards to big coach tours - if you want a picture with the sign post you have to pay a guy £10, just as well it was a misty day or would have been more upset about only getting a quick pic from behind the fence.

Sennen Cove

Land's End (top of pic)

St. Ives was a very large, pretty fishing village that is a big 'day at the seaside' type place. with every second store selling ice cream and the next selling fish and chips. The ice creams here came with a warning - be careful of the seagulls! They'd learnt to swoop in and just grab your ice cream as you take a bite. All the fishing villages around this coast have man made harbour walls, so every town you see has it's own little calm bay or beach area.

An awesome day was spent checking out Minack Theatre and the Porthcurno Beach area. Liz loved bringing people here, with good reason - it was so beautiful! First there's an amazing lookout point over the huge, hidden beach with it's giant cliffs. Apparently at the right time of year you can look down and see basking sharks.

Then, after paying a small fee you go into the Minack Theatre, which is an extremely unusual, very interesting and jaw droppingly beautiful sight. It is a completely man made open-air theatre, and they play shows throughout the summer. It would be an amazing place for a concert or a play - if it's at night they light it all up and during the day it's just gorgeous anyway. The amazing story behind it is that it was created by one woman, by hand, over decades, with just the help of one or two people. She carted building materials down and mixed all the concrete. Every single seat and step has a different design or name drawn into the concrete. There is a little visitor centre detailing the history, as well as a cafe with the best view. It was a really cool place and I could definitely see why this lady poured her heart and life into building it!

I also spent an afternoon exploring every nook and cranny of the castle on St. Michael's Mount, which is the little hill of an island right in front of Penzance and sticks out for miles.

The cool thing about this 'island' is that it can be reached on foot at low tide, across a wide cobblestoned path. You can take the tiny ferry boat if the tide is up but it's much more fun to walk across. It only takes about half an hour to wait for the tide to draw out enough and walk over once it's low enough to see the path. It's a decent sized castle, and there what used to be a tiny village on the lower part of the island for all the servants and other people working for the castle. There are fantastic views, especially on the amazing day I saw it on. There are also huge formal, pleasure and botanic gardens on one side so once you've had a look in the castle you can have a wander around outside and have  a picnic on the lawns.

Looking down over the gardens

Looking back over the causeway to Marazion, the next town along the bay from Penzance

Looking over to Penzance

The gorgeous chapel

A B&B in Penzance, no less

For my second HelpX I headed down to Cornwall in the South-West of England, to a town called Penzance. It was about 4 hours on the train from Barnstaple in Devon and it was a very pretty train ride, especially when it went along the coastline. My host was an older lady called Liz who owned a B&B a minutes walk from the sea front, and I was there for two weeks. There were no guests at the B&B while I was there so I got to stay in one of the very lovely rooms instead of a little sleepout in the garden. Usually HelpXers helped clean the rooms and do breakfasts etc when there were guests but I mainly helped out in the garden and did random jobs as they came up, like polishing a brass lamp, trimming the hedge, mowing the little lawn, or weeding the gardens/pots and the edges of the drive. There was a small courtyard out the back full of potted plants, plus two sections of garden in the front, which included a little carpark for guests. Liz was a lovely lady who was very widely travelled and it was great hearing all her stories from when she lived in the United Arab Emirates.

On one of the days we went along to Liz's friends' house to help out in her garden. She was an old lady in her 90s with a big garden built into a steep hillside, with lots of steps and levels. Her usual gardener had had an accident so it was really nice to be able to help her out. She cooked us a big roast lunch as a thank you, and we enjoyed the amazing views of the ocean and the coastline from the top of the garden. Other days Liz took me to a huge car boot sale, a food festival in a nearby town, and to a couple of other sights around the place. Liz was really flexible and really keen for me to see all the sights of this beautiful area, so sometimes I'd do a full day's gardening then go on a day's sightseeing, or do a half day then go for a big walk to the other little towns and things along the coast depending on what the weather was doing.

There were a few rainy days but it was mostly really great, sunny weather. It was interesting to find that the Penzance area has much better weather than the rest of England due to it's location, so there were plants around from tropical areas and it was a really nice place to be. I really loved looking around Penzance and Cornwall, it's such a beautiful area. It used to be a massive area for the London middle class to come and holiday in, marketed strongly by the rail network. I loved spending the evenings walking down the long promenade along the huge, curved seafront.

I also helped Liz out a lot on the computer, transcribing some old records into a database, which is an ongoing project for her as a genealogist who is documenting all the births, deaths and marriages from a church in the parish of her ancestors. She would decipher them and read them out from her enlarger and I'd type them up for her. I think we got through quite a lot and she seemed really pleased, and I'm not too bad at transcribing so it worked really well. Liz even took a big interest in my family history and did heaps of research for my mum's side of the family once I'd given her a few names.

Festival time!

So with the weather on its way to warming up I’ve got summer music festivals on the brain again! People in the UK are so unbelievably spoilt for choice, and that’s without even counting all the ones over in Europe. This is the first time I’ve been faced with such a huge choice of festivals so I’ve been trying to plan ahead a little bit to see how I can get around and see as many as possible.

I've made one decision at least and have bought a ticket for 'T in the Park' in Scotland, over the weekend of the 12-14th July. Originally my friend Jamie and I were planning on going to Leeds festival, which is the same as it's sister festival Reading, both held on the bank holiday weekend in August (the artists play one festival, on Friday for example, then travel to the other to play on the Sunday, so both festivals have the same line up!). After discovering the line up for T in the Park though...easy decision haha. It's going to be so great!!!

www.tinthepark.com/line-up

Check out the amazing line up! I can't believe I'm going to see these bands, all in one place!!! Wooo!!!!!!!! Especially excited for Modest Mouse (one of my fav bands for ages), The Lumineers and Frank Turner, but there's so many others...I'm just about melting with excitement :D

Glastonbury is on this year (only on every second year) and it would have been awesome to go to that. Tickets went on sale in October last year and all 120,000 sold out in an hour so no chance there. I thought I might volunteer there through Oxfam, where you a few shifts of stewarding or wristbanding etc in exchange for your entrance ticket, but I took my time as usual and all the slots filled up pretty fast....Glasto was originally one of my can't miss things when coming to the UK, but I'm actually not too bothered. There's so many other, more accessible festivals, most of which I'm actually more interested in the line up for! Maybe I'll try for next time it rolls around...

I also wanted to go to Latitude festival as it's a lot smaller and sounds like it has a good laid back atmosphere. The two headliners are Modest Mouse (see above) and Bloc Party...I've just seen Bloc Party in London in February and it was one of the best gigs I've ever been to. So seeing two of my all time favourite bands at the one festival...!! Volunteer spots for this festival are also full though so I might think about just getting a day ticket...

There's loads and loads more festivals coming up and I would love to go to one or two at least! Will have to see how far the time/money etc etc compromises go...

Devon Sightseeing

During my two week stay in North Devon I was able to see quite a bit thanks to my hosts, who were keen to get me to see the best of their local sights. As well as just going with them when they went shopping or to the abattoirs,' one day I was dropped off in a little old fishing village called Clovelly. Clovelly is a beautiful but strange place as it is a privately owned village that is maintained using the same practices as when it was first built. There are no vehicles allowed (except for a track off to the side), as it is built on a very steep hillside and the little lanes are all cobblestoned. The villagers use sleds pulled by donkeys to get their supplies. It costs £6.50 to get in (except when you have a local dropping you off there ;) ) and some tourists think that the houses aren't real - they try the doors and just walk in on people living their lives. It does feel like you should be able to do this though, it feels like you are walking through a film set or something!

I really enjoyed my afternoon there, especially as it happened to be on one of the first properly warm days of spring - so after a couple of hours of sitting on the quay and soaking up the sun I actually got a little bit burnt - woohoo first of the season! :) Now time to dig out the sunscreen :(











Since I was in Devon I took the opportunity whilst in Clovelly to have a proper Devonshire cream tea - two scones, jam, clotted cream and a pot of tea. It takes a few tastes to get used to clotted cream but I love the stuff now...it's quite weird, it reminds me of whipped butter that tastes of cream. The texture is firm enough to hold it's shape but soft and gooey and sticky when you dig into it with a spoon.

My HelpX host Julie was also very excited to take me to another little attraction, the Gnome Reserve. After seeing the sign for this place I just had to see it - a super quirky, only-in-the-English-countryside kind of thing. Basically an old woman has her collection of over 1000 garden gnomes displayed as a cute little woodland walk. There's some very old gnomes in there as the reserve has been running since 1979.

I also got to see the stunning coastline at a place called Hartland Quay. We went there one evening with a plan to see the sunset but it unfortunately clouded over just beforehand. We did get some good late afternoon sun though, and it was absolutely amazing when we arrived as the waves were humongous, crashing against the rocks with huge sprays and roars. It was a really beautiful spot, I'm so glad I got to see it!

Pints to Pig Muck

So I've made it out of London! Currently at my first Help Exchange in the town of Woolfardisworthy (or Woolsery) in North Devon, on Ford Mill Farm. It was about a four hour train trip to get here, though it was a bit longer than planned since the first train ran late, so we missed the connection. The train company had to put the 25 or so people in a minivan and taxis and drive us the last hour...so I eventually met up with my hosts and got out to the farm. Julie and Dave are really nice and so welcoming. They have a lovely house, the original parts of which date back to the 1600s, and two much loved basset hounds called Phoebe and Hector. They run a small pig farm breeding a rare breed called Gloucester Old Spots. There are 4 sows, a boar and five or six groups of litters at different ages. One pig is due to have piglets in the next few days so I that'll be cool. I haven't really been around pigs much so the opportunity to see a bunch of cute piglets will be great! There is also a couple of lambs being bottle fed and a few dozen chickens. Julie and Dave also have guests staying at a luxury self contained holiday cottage and run a small butchery. I'm going to be helping out in the butchery a bit next week so that will be really interesting.

So far I've helped out in the morning and evening animal feeding, moved some pigs into different pens, topped up the food and straw levels and helped Dave take a load of stuff to the dump. The first thing I helped with was cleaning out the front of one of the pig pens - literally just shovelling pig poo and mud into the digger bucket for a couple of hours. I found this quite funny after living in London for awhile...pulled my last pint on Sunday and got right into a pile of pig muck by Wednesday haha...This was great though - straight into feeling like I'm really helping. And of course it's not all going to be like that, it just happened to have needed to be done this week. As well as butchery stuff next week it sounds like I'll be helping with things like cleaning out the kitchen cupboards and painting the cupboard doors and stuff like that. It's freezing today (Thursday) so we've all been inside by the fire (so nice!!), I might do some vaccuming or something soon. So pretty laid back, I'm loving having a break from city life at the mo and being able to check out a pretty, new part of the country :)

End of the London Living

So it’s come around fast but after about 9 months in London it’s time to move on and check out the rest of the UK. I know I could just stay in London and use it as a base for travelling around, considering I have the security of a good job and accommodation, not to mention a great bunch of new friends…but as my visa is for just two years I think I’ll see and experience a whole lot more by moving on. I don’t want to end up having to cram the whole of England or Scotland for example into a couple of weekend getaways when I can get work off; I think I’ll see things a lot more in depth by living and working in a couple of different cities and areas longer term.

I’ll be finishing up at my job here at the end of March before heading out to start Help Exchanging for a couple of months, while the weather warms up over spring. I know no-one knows what Help Exchanging is – if you’ve heard of World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOFing) it’s pretty much the same as that. Basically it’s helping people out with odd jobs for a few hours a day, for about 2 or 3 weeks at a time or more. In return you get food and board. Generally the hosts you stay with are on small (organic or not) farms, lifestyle blocks and ‘small holdings,’ though there are quite a few B&Bs, hostels, guest houses and plain homestays (plus a few hippie communes and ‘alternative lifestylers’ haha).  You can help with all sorts of stuff, from cleaning, cooking and housekeeping to mowing lawns, weeding, feeding/cleaning animals, and painting fences. Any projects the people have on the go that they need a hand with really.

I’m very excited about starting these help exchanges, as I think it’s a great way to see little pockets of the countryside that you would never see otherwise, and forces you to go out and see these places rather than just stay in the cities. Plus it’s a different way to meet loads of people. The first exchange I’m doing when I leave London will be in North Devon, which is a massive, mainly farming region kind of in the South West of England. I’ll be there for a couple of weeks before heading to the south more to the apparently stunning Cornwall coast, helping out in a B&B there. I basically hope to work my way up to Scotland for the summer,  and find a job and live there for a few months.

I’ll definitely miss London, it’s been fantastic!! And I’ll be coming back at some point, especially to catch up with friends here. It feels very strange to be leaving…but can’t wait for whatever’s next!

http://www.helpex.net/