Cornwall

So anyway we did finally arrive in Cornwall which was nice.

We stayed in a holiday park just outside Camelford – another bargain found via the excellent Travel Zoo.com. First class accommodation and tickets to the Eden Project thrown in at an exceedingly good price.

We were very close to Tintagel, Boscastle and Crackington Haven.

I knew why I knew of Camelford – from the poisoned water disaster but I couldn’t think why Boscastle was familiar, until we got there and saw the reminders of the devastating flood they experienced in August 2004 (very interesting link here). In 24 hours they had 200.4 mm of rain (most of that falling in a five hour period). The rain was very localised: four of the nearest 10 rain gauges, all within a few miles of Boscastle, showed less than 3 mm of rain that day. This I learn from Wikipedia is down to the Brown Willy effect. (Yes, yes – I sniggered too). Crackington Haven suffered very badly that day as well.

As well as visiting the coastal villages we made use of our free tickets to the Eden Project which was interesting, especially learning about how it had been transformed from a disused clay pit to the extraordinary collection of plants that it is today. It has to be said though that if one visits it in the middle of February one probably does not see it in all its glory. It was predominantly green and brown when we were there.



Oh – and a mere 18 months later than planned we finally managed to get fish and chips at Rick Stein’s chippie, and a very superior fish and chips with mushy peas it was too. Well worth the wait!

We thought we must have been mad planning a trip to Cornwall in February, but in the event as luck would have it, it turned out that we had been very sensible. The weather was good (In fact spring had already sprung there - we saw our first daffodils of the year and our first new born lambs.) The views were spectacular, the pubs were as good as ever, and the place wasn't heaving with other tourists. Of course had we planned to go the week before we would never have got there due to the snow. It's always a gamble going anywhere in the UK though. After all, I expect those visitors to Boscastle in August 2004 thought they might get a bit of sun.......................


Thanks Reidski for a brilliant time. xxxx