Cornwall 2013 (Part 1)
Friday 9 August
This break seems to be have been a long time coming. We usually take our holidays far earlier than this, but herself didn't get herself organised in time so couldn't get the time off in work.
Anyway, by just before 6pm we are fed, loaded up and on the road, joining the M4 at junction 48 to start out haul down to the West Country. I may have mentioned this before, but I hate the tow out of South Wales with a passion. However, traffic was reasonably light as we crossed the River Severn and veered off onto the M49 towards Avonmouth and the M5 southbound.
http://wannabepikey.blogspot.co.uk/
Our rapid progress was abrupty halted as we joined the M5 car park with an armada of caravans and Citroen Picassos with roof boxes and made somewhat less rapid progress until we'd cleared Weston Super Mare.
Normal service resumed and we were passing the wicker man a little over 2 hours after leaving home. He was somewhat more impressive when he stood in a field in the middle of nowhere a few years ago, unlike now when he is dwarfed by the neighboring mahoosive Morrisons distribution centre.
We pulled into Taunton Dean Services at a little after 8pm for a break and let the dogs stretch their legs. I made sure I stretched mine first to avoid a repeat of last year's antics with Tali.
Surprise surprise, they want feeding. We travel a little further until we stumble across a Brewers Fayre joint that does an eat as much as you like breakfast menu. We did !!! It was an interesting experience. It's not that often that I sit in a restaurant and am surrounded by people eating in their pyjamas!!! Some 45 mins later (loaded up with muffins stolen from the buffet) we wobbled our way to the cars to travel the rest of the way to site, having eaten enough to keep an African family going for a year
By 9.30am we were on our pitches at Trevedra Farm in Sennen and were fully set up - Caravan , awning & tent by noon.
Despite having done a monster shop (mostly meat) in Farm Foods yesterday we need some provisions (mostly alcohol) so make the trip back to Penzance to load up.
Our trip back to site was interesting to say the least. A car was attempting to overtake another, misjudged and clipped the front corner of a bus.This sent him into the bank before catapulting him in the air, wiping out some power lines before landing on his roof in a field. This happened about 5 cars in front of us, and pandemonium ensued.
A local seemed unperturbed about the accident and was more concerned about the road being closed. Lots of arm flapping and cursing resulted in him storming back to his car, but kindly offering for us to follow him so he could show us a diversion. Great we thought, that is until he took off through the lanes like Gwyndaf Evans. Miranda's tyres were screeching, herself was hanging onto what ever she could hang onto and the dogs were playing pinball in the back of the car.
Back on site the Weber is fired up for an easy tea of sausages and burgers, all washed down with luke warm lager.
Sunday 11 August
We wake to clear skies and breakfast on cereal, pastries and bacon rolls. Bacon was cooked outside while guzzling numerous mugs of tea. I'm enjoying this site. Whilst it's not up to Caravan Club standards, it's cheap and has an interesting vibe to it (read full of ageing hippies) and there's always something going on.
There's an elderly gent stopping on a nearby pitch, and he's packing up to set off today. He has an old caravan dating from the 1970s, and I think his towing mirrors are as old as the van. It's quite some time since I've seen a pair of these bewts in use!
From there we take the coast road to Newlyn and Mousehole before heading in land to the Drift Resevoir. The intention was to walk the perimeter with the dogs, but it is all fenced off as private property. We continue north to St Just and Cape Cornwall before going back to site to chill for a few hours.
After tea we all decide to head off back out. Earlier on today we'd spotted an amusement arcade on the promenade between Penzance and Newlyn, and the place looked lovely as we approached with it being all lit up in the fast fading light.
It's lucky that I'm not really a 'competitive dad' and have gone easy on Ronnie and Roids over the years. Otherwise they wouldn't have thrashed me 7-2 and 7-1 at air hockey in front of the whole arcade!!!!!
With my mojo having taken a hammering I retrieve the dogs from the back of Miranda and cross the promenade to take a wander and watch the world do what the world does in this part of the world.
Ship lights twinkled out at sea, couples strolled arm in arm,NEDS raced up and down and druggies lurked in the shelters waiting for their dealer to show up with their fix!!!!
Herself, Ronnie, Roids, DD and TF got thrown out of the arcade (well, it closed) and we head back to site at 10pm.
The return journey of 8 miles or so had its moments. On the outskirts of Penzance on the unlit roads some NEDs were playing chicken with cars, I slammed on Miranda's brakes and narrowly avoided tangling the tw@t's spindly legs in Miranda's front bull bar.
Herself is an animal lover, and incidents involving road kill don't really sit well with her. A few miles after the NEDs incident a rabbit gets caught in Miranda's headlights and is weaving back and fore in the road in front of me. The pressure is on but I manage to avoid flattenng it under Miranda's tyres, so Mixy lives another day.
Or so we thought! We pull up on site and Ronnie says ... " You know that Rabbit that you missed back there ...... well I managed to hit it!!" before dissappearing into his tent leaving me to deal with a traumatized herself!