Onwards and upwards

Phew! What a long day! What was supposed to only be a short drive turned into a seriously long haul. Not helped by our lack of motorway usage, I'm sure.

A few additions to the Cornwall set, as well as some more in the Misc Photos set:

Cornwall: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646225135997/
Misc Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/

After saying goodbye to our friends in St. Austell, we ventured north towards Tintagel. Tintagel is the home of the castle that 'is no longer a castle' - all the ruins have degraded over the years to leave barely anything left intact. The area contains many legendary locations of Arthurian legend - Dozmary Pool, where Excalibur was dropped in the lake, Merlin's cave, where Merlin became Emrys and met King Arthur for the first time, and King Arthur's grave.

We busied ourselves instead with the Tintagel Old Post Office. It had many different uses during its day, but the locals named it so in the early 20th century, and the name stuck, despite its purpose changing several times after:

Tintagel Old Post Office

We also got the chance to relive a much older experience of hostelling around Europe when I travelled here with my dad in 2004. We stayed at a dramatically-set Youth Hostel, right on the north coast of Cornwall, with magnificent views over the windswept coastline:

North Cornish coast

From there it was mostly a stop-free trip to Trowbridge, a town outside Bath, where we would stay overnight. We detoured by the coastal road, along the north coast of Cornwall, which turned into Devon, which turned into Somerset. Along the way there were many spectacular photo points. Even though it was a little hazy, you could see all the way to the coast of South Wales:

The English coast

Tomorrow's day of travelling will be quite long, with a couple of important stops. I'm going to break my pattern and have a blog for each day! Until tomorrow.

Crossing the channel

After two days of hectic travel, we have arrived in the UK. It's nice to be back in a country that speaks English again! It means I can purge all the foreign languages out of my system - for the time being at least.

For the last two days, I've added quite a few photos to the Flickr driving set:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/

First up on the first morning was a quick whiparound of Avranches, the small town where we're staying. It's a fairly small town, but it's got a decently-sized tourism office because it's so close to the Normandy-Brittany coast. In the town there's an obligatory enormous cathedral, a ruined medieval castle and a memorial to General Patton, who broke through a German frontline in the Great War, which ultimately resulted in the liberation of France in just two days!

A whiparound of Avranches

From there it was a loooong drive to Le Havre. Mum had previously wanted to stop by some D-Day related stuff, like Omaha Beach, but we ended up just driving through a couple of towns near Le Havre. They are collectively known as Deauville-Trouville, and are well-known for their seaside location and old buildings. But 'The Parisian Riviera'? Get a grip! They're not that impressive.

Deauville-Trouville

We eventually made it to the Port of Le Havre, and queued up to check in. Just like boarding a plane, you have to check in with your car at least 45 minutes before the scheduled departure time. We were ushered onto the car deck just over an hour before a scheduled 5:00pm departure on our ship, which was called the Seven Sisters.

For those that haven't used a car ferry before, you basically have to get what you need from your car - you can't access the car decks while you're sailing. Once you've done that, you head upstairs and try and snare a seat. I found some seats that were quite comfortable, but they were right near the playground area. Run away! We went up a deck and found some identical seats with no kids. Great!

We actually left Le Havre about 15 minutes early - probably because the decks were less than half full - not before I got some good shots of the waterfront of Le Havre. Good thing about a nice camera - the shutter is too fast to worry about the ship's list:

Le Havre waterfront

We settled into a five-and-a-half-hour journey. Mum's a poor sailor, yet she managed relatively well - she said afterwards another hour might have been pushing it though. We actually found a cabin of sorts fore of where we were - it was very dark and quiet, with next to no people in it. It seemed to be a 'quiet zone' - nobody was talking at all. It was marvellous.

We hadn't had lunch, so I headed down to the restaurant at about 8. I decided to try a British fish and chips - the prices were quite reasonable for ferry and ship standards, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. The fish and chips was typically British - the fish was lots of batter and not a lot of fish, the chips were almost crispy.

About an hour before arrival in Bournemouth, the sun started to spectacularly set behind some clouds. There were a lot of people out on the decks, but I managed to find myself a quiet spot and started snapping:

Sunset from the Seven Sisters

Our overnight tonight was a hotel just off the main East-West motorway, surprisingly quiet so close to the motorway. Free WiFi, free parking, less than $100 a night. Sold! We found out the next morning that there was a mill museum next to it. Not that we could go, because it was closed for the entire month. Slackers!

Our initial plan for day two was to make quick stops in Torquay and Plymouth. I hadn't read much about them personally, but mum wanted to go to Torquay and dad wanted to go to Plymouth. It became inherent after about an hour on the road that that wasn't going to happen.

OH MY GOD THE TRAFFIC IN THIS COUNTRY! Evidently we got the worst end of a bad Saturday afternoon, but all the A Roads, as they're known here, were stupidly busy. We made multiple detours on back roads to beat the traffic.

We cruised along near the coast for quite a while. We quickly drove through a couple of towns, including Dawlish, but decided there wasn't enough there to warrant a stop. Frankly, I thought the countryside looked much better than the towns:

The Devonshire coastline

We crossed through a couple of nice towns and made a lightning-fast stop on the beach in Torquay. Enough to get a few photos:

Cornish coastal towns

Eventually we made it to Plymouth, where we looked at a railway bridge named after Isambard Brunel, an English rail baron and one of Britain's most influential entrepreneurs. To put it in perspective, he was named second in the '100 Greatest Britons' survey, behind only some insignificant guy named Winston Churchill. The bridge wasn't that amazing, but it was a fantastic legacy to a great man's work.

Eventually we made it to dad's friends' place. They live in a tiny suburb in the town of St. Austell. It's pretty central in Cornwall, making it easy to explore in any direction - except for south, it's almost right on the sea. We'll be staying here for four whole days. We'll probably go down to St. Michael's Mount, but the rest is up in the air. Catch you next time!