Happy Easter from Cornwall

We have been here for the past two days and have been having a wonderful time, even though it is freezing!

We left London on Friday morning and were lulled in to a false sense of security by the first hour of our drive. We thought at that stage the drive going was to be easy, however as we moved out of London the traffic became heavier and we slowed to a crawl. It took us about 8 hours to travel just over 500 km ...not like travel in Australia. Not to worry, we got here safely and did have lunch in a pub on the way. 'Here', is a B&B called Spring Cottage in Probus. It is about 300 years old and lovely. It is also quite central to a lot of the Cornwall area.

On Friday night we went to St Mawes for a drive and had dinner in a pub. As we sat there it seemed all the neighbourhood and their dogs came in for a visit. It seemed very friendly and the food was reasonable too. It made sense that they all wanted to be indoors, as outdoors was freezing. The wind was incredibly strong and went right through you, but even so the village is gorgeous.

This is the old castle in St Mawes

Yesterday we started our day visiting The Eden Project. This is the most amazing thing. It was originally an old mine pit until a few local people got together just over 10 years ago and turned it into a major showcase for what is possible environmentally. They built two huge biomes, creating a mediterranean biome and a rainforest biome. These are massive greenhouses and provide brilliant resources for environmental education and research. They are astounding! There are also outdoor gardens on the site, a huge stage area and a massive education centre.

The view from the top of the old mine pit.


An inside view of one small section of the mediterranean biome.

The facts for the rainforest biome..it is the bigger of the two.

A sculpture made from electrical goods. They say this is the equivalent to the goods that one person will throw out in their lifetime!

After this we visited a national trust home. We joined the national trust on Thursday night and have already visited three sites. The first was Lanhydrock a beautiful 17th century country house and gardens. (It was raining a lot yesterday so we decided to try to be indoors as much as possible). The house has fifty rooms that are open to the public and we loved the quote that the family designed and built it as a 'modest family home'!

Just oozes modesty doesn't it!

We spent several hours at Lanhydrock, (poor Richard!) and then went to visit his holiday stomping ground when he was a child. His family spent seven or eight years visiting the town of Newquay. We went to the beach they used to go to and he was amazed by how small it seems now compared with his childhood memory of many hours spent there. The wind at Newquay was incredible. There were times when it was literally blowing us along! It was absolutely freezing and incredibly strong.

The little beach on the left is the one Richard played on as a child.

Sunset over Newquay

I need to download some photos from today so that I am able to share them here so I will try to add more to my blog soon. In the meantime...I hope you all had a wonderful easter. We have been thoroughly enjoying ourselves here.