By train, bus and car to Land's End Day 8
Dear Readers, get a nice cup of tea or coffee and settle down to read, as this is a longer than normal blog.
We all had a really good sleep after our adventures of the
night before. We had planned to go back to Padstow to pick up my car, so the
train we wanted to get was at 10.15 and the station was only a short walk away
from the harbour. We arrived in good time to catch said train and it was in
fact the GWR fast train to Paddington, so very nice as trains go and it felt
quite luxurious after the boat.
Our carriage was almost empty apart from three German
tourists, one of whom complained about the coldness of his coke and sent it
back…yes there was a trolley service, but no hot drinks. Luckily I had a real
coffee at the station before boarding the train so that kept me going for the 1
¼ hour train trip.
So it took just over an hour to get to Bodmin Gateway, which we
imagined would be a large station in the middle of Bodmin, and as we had an
hour to wait for the bus, we thought we could have a look around Bodmin,
perhaps have a spot of lunch. Well, as we alighted the train at Bodmin Gateway,
it was in the middle of nowhere! There was nothing except a bus stop!! The old
signal box had been turned into a buffet, with no hot food but we did get
coffees and teas and Josh treated himself to a Billionaire shortbread, which
actually was exactly the same as the Millionaires shortbread they had on sale
except a bit bigger!!
The bus arrived and there was quite a queue of people;
several trains had come in while we were waiting and there was in particular a
group of serious looking walkers who had got off a train and were also heading
to Padstow. Several were Americans, and while we had been sheltering from the
rain in the tiny ticket office a family of Americans had also come
in. It seems tourists are back, certainly in this part of the World, and it
seems strange to hear different accents again after the tourist free years of
lockdown.
The bus drew up and a charming lady driver alighted, as she
was swapping with another bus driver who had just pulled in on another bus. He
couldn’t have been more different, he was cursing and swearing at us, the
drivers seat and everything else…obviously having a bad day! He told the group
of walkers that as they had their walking gear on they could walk to Padstow and he wasn't joking!!
His driving reflected
his mood. We seemed to be going in the wrong direction and he suddenly pulled
up at a bus stop behind another bus and stormed off without saying a word. We all wondered what was going on?,
A couple of men in high vis jackets were standing at the bus
stop and seemed to be having a discussion, then one of them got on and said in
a cheerful voice “Don’t worry, we know what we are doing!” and off we went,
after doing a u turn and heading back the way we had come!
The rest of the journey was uneventful and we arrived in
Padstow more or less on time, an hour later at 13.20.
Padstow was it’s usual busy self, with most of the car parks
full and a sea of tourists and dogs overwhelming the village. Andrew had only
seen it late on Monday evening, when it was quiet, but having seen it today he
remarked “I see what you mean”, because he had been reading my blog and
probably thought I had been exaggerating. We searched out one of the best fudge
shops in Cornwall and did some other shopping and found a quieter pub towards
the Rock ferry, but no food only pizza. I went back into the melee of the town
and bought some sandwiches, which we ate in the car before heading out on the road
early afternoon.
 |
| Beautiful St Ives |
We decided to take a look at St Ives, and what a lovely place with a stunning beach, a real Cornish cove. Ice creams were bought, it had to be done, local Kelly’s ice cream in a waffle cone, and we sat down on a bench on the beach to enjoy it. Seconds later the whole cone with ice cream was snatched out of Josh’s hand by two rather aggressive looking seagulls, obviously working as a pair in a well-rehearsed raiding mission on unsuspecting ice cream eaters! St Ives looks very well kept and prosperous, perhaps because the railway still comes here? I loved it and it epitomises what I imagined Cornwall to be like.
Our next stop was Land’s End. Having sailed around it the
day before we were keen to see it from the land. It was a rather Disneyesque theme park kind of a place which surprised us. All sorts of themed places, some loosely related to
Cornwall but also a Wallace and Gromit experience! We walked past this
area and luckily it was closed because it was 6pm by the time we were there. Land’s
End is still dramatic viewed from the clifftop, and it is hard to believe we
had sailed through the gap between the headland and the Lightships rocks just a
few hours earlier. 
Longships lighthouse, Land's End
The obligatory photos were taken at the signpost and Andrew now wants to go to John O’Groats to complete the experience.
 |
 |
| Treacherous Coast |
On the way back through village of Sennen there is a pub
called the First and Last Inn, for obvious reasons, so we had to go in and have
a pint. It is a 17th century inn with an interesting history as a
smuggling pub and in the floor of the bar you can peer through a glass cover
into the smugglers tunnel.
- The kitchen was closed due to lack of staff, something we have come across a few times on our travels. Certainly, in Padstow there was a lot of adverts for bar and kitchen staff. It seems particularly bad here in Cornwall. As the barmaid said, the price of houses has been pushed up and up by people buying property for holiday homes, and locals simply can’t afford to live here. Hence the pool of labour for these types of jobs has dried up. It is a shame and I feel sorry for the locals and I can understand why sometimes they are not very polite or welcoming to visitors. We were talking to the harbour master and he said the same thing.
However, when we got back to Penzance we decided to walk around and find somewhere to eat, but a lot of the places we tried were closed, presumably due to lack of staff. Even places that said they were open on the internet, were closed when we got there. A lot of empty shops, charity shops, and homeless people sleeping in doorways in this part of the town, it was quite depressing. We finally found an Indian restaurant which turned out to be very good indeed. It didn’t serve alcohol but you could bring your own, but it added to the quiet atmosphere somehow not to have alcohol. The lovely Nepalese owner chatted to us at some length. She is married to an Englishman and has been here for 15 years and loves the quiet life her compared to the harshness of life in Nepal, ( her words.)
After a delicious meal we walked along to find Chapel Street , because one pub we went into that had no food service recommended we try there, and so we discovered the nice part of Penzance, just when we were giving up hope! Market Jew Street and Chapel Street is much more up market, with trendy shops art galleries and restaurants and some very old historic pubs. The B&B we are staying in tomorrow night is in this area so I was very pleased to discover this nice part of town.
Comments
Post a Comment