simple life

Rain, rain and more rain and then St Mawes in even more rain….

/ freedombird / Leave a comment

Twas a wild night last night and the rain just kept coming, in the end I decided to put the roof down when we went to bed and that indeed was a good call. It has been very cold in the van during the last few nights after we have settled down and turned the heating off, so I was quite surprised at how the van retained its warmth with the roof closed – lesson learned!

The rain continued in earnest until about 2pm so we binge watched Shetland before heading off to St Mawes. The pause in the rain was brief and as we parked up the heavens opened again though this time it was short lived and was mostly dry as we wandered around St Mawes.

The first beach we encountered was the rather seaweed strewn Idle Rocks beach….

The small harbour has a small sandy beach….

Heading towards the castle we came upon Tavern Beach also very weedy….

The town itself is very well maintained and the seafront dominated by pretty fishermen’s cottages, a smattering of galleries and gift shops, several up market hotels and thriving pubs and of course countless holiday lets. The castle is very small and sits proudly on the headland looking out to Falmouth and the open sea…..

Just beyond the castle is Castle Cove by far the prettiest beach….

Beyond the Idle Rocks beach lies Summers Beach….

Less weedy so we went down for a play before the rain started again….

A pleasant wander and respite from an otherwise dull day – do you think the weather needs reminding that it is the 1st of May tomorrow?

Rainy day exploring from Portscatho to St Anthony’s Head….

/ freedombird / 1 Comment

Well yesterday’s illusive sunshine has clearly run for the hills as today has dripped on us all day. However, ever hopeful that the forecast might be wrong, we continued with our plans and made our first stop in Portscatho. Firstly walking away from the village to visit Porthcurnick Beach….

Then walking back on ourselves along the coastal path to Portscatho, a pretty fishing village which seems to cling on to the side of the cliffs like so many others here in Cornwall.

In the village there are two smallish sandy beaches – the town beach….

And the harbour beach….

Next stop was due to be Towan beach but as it was raining heavily we carried on past to take a look at St Anthony’s Head lighthouse….

Walking on beyond the lighthouse to take a look at the magnificent beach of Great Molunan with St Mawes just about visible in the rain across the Percull river estuary….

Looking back over the beach towards St Anthony’s Head lighthouse

The rain is not giving up anytime soon so we went for a damp walk along Towan Beach – having picked up a coffee and rather delicious BLT at the cafe there…..

We ventured along the coastal path, back towards St Anthony’s Head to encounter first Elwinick Cove….

I’m not sure that this beach is accessible and here we encountered the full force of the strong winds with the rain splatting us directly in the face so we only ventured a short way further on to see Porthbeor Beach in the murky distance….

Looking well worth a visit on a much nicer day…

Damp and somewhat bedraggled it is time to be blown back along the coastal path to our home on wheels and back to site to dry out and warm up.

Tomorrow is another day..

On the road again…..but just a chillax day for us…

/ freedombird / Leave a comment

Well it has been a while but with a fair wind and maybe a little bit of sunshine we shall soon be back on the road full time. For now we are just happy to be away in the van and ‘living the dream’. Easing ourselves in gently and making the most of a rare sunny day we revisited Porthluney Beach at Caerhays Castle for a bacon bap and mooch on the beach.

Tilly the Poo

Our next stop today was Portloe and a very pretty little fishing village perched high above a small cove…

On the way back to site we stopped at Carne beach to catch (just about) the last of the day’s sunshine….

Looking pretty stormy out to sea

Ending the day with a walk along the beach to Pendower….

A trip to Lantic Bay….

/ freedombird / 1 Comment

Well the forecast did not disappoint – rain was forecast and rain we got…. After dropping the van back to the workshop we spent a very boring morning dodging the rain at a Retail Park just down the road from the workshop – it is days like this which make you realise how undogfriendly many shops and Costa Coffee are!! I did sneak Tilly into Costa’s just so that I could order a coffee and pastry but soon got told to wait outside!!

At midday we returned to the workshop and I was given a full run through of my upgrades and how to work everything. I must say they have done a first class job and I’m really impressed with their workmanship – Batteries and Solar Ltd, Plymouth. For those of you curious folk I have had a 200 watt solar panel fitted to the roof, a 1200w inverter linked into my current electrical system so that I can use my three pin plugs off the leisure battery and boil a kettle – whoop! The existing leisure battery has been replaced with a Lithium one and lastly a diesel heater fitted to replace the electric one I had which would only run when on electric hook up – so hey get me in my Wild Van – off grid here we come!!

It is still very miserable but we decided to visit Lantic Bay on our way to at least see one beach today. Parking in a good sized NT car park we take the footpath through some fields to join the coastal path….

We are soon rewarded with lovely, albeit misty views down to Lantic Bay….

Unfortunately it starts to rain in earnest so we do not take the steep path down for a closer look but instead head back to the warmth and shelter of the van and make our way south to our next site at Veryan.

Someone has nabbed the best seat in the van and is very determined to stay cozy on this somewhat wet and wild night…

A trip to St Ives….

/ freedombird / 2 Comments

Well at least it has stopped raining and in fact we even saw a bit of sunshine. A different sort of day for us today as we are off to St Ives to meet up with friends. It was a bit busier than I expected and the main car park was already full so up to the Rugby Club for us it was – still a bit cheaper up there at £6 for the day (still daylight robbery in my opinion!).

The town itself was way to busy with the main shopping lane thronging with people (why are they not at work / school / college?) so we gave that I wide berth, instead heading along the harbour wall looking across at the town, the tide was still quite high at this stage.

We wandered round to Porthmeor Beach and beyond – surfers paradise with hundreds of little black ants out there bobbing on the waves.

After a very pleasant lunch sat on the Harbour beach in the sunshine we walked along to Porthminster Beach, this was less crowded and Poppydog could at least have a run around and dunk in the sea – though too many footballs on the beach to allow her any serious freedom alas.

Across the water Godrevy Lighthouse always appears to be glittering in the sunshine, starkly white against the black rock on which it is perched.

A final walk back along the harbour front, mainly to pay a visit to the cute old fashioned bakery at the far end for goodies for later, before the long haul back up to our cars.

A lovely day spent with friends and at least 6 miles walked.