UK: England and Cornwall Trip 2000

3. Cornwall

Lifeboat Practice in a Cornish Harbor

Cornwall is at the south west tip of the UK, and about as far from London as you can get without leaving England. Even so it is only about a day's drive away. It looks strangely familiar, with farms from BBC period dramas and quarries from Dr. Who episodes.

Cornwall has a tradition of fishing in small rowed and sailing boats. Part of this is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Their modern lifeboats are diesel driven and launched at high speed from a slipway. Buy in one harbor the locals were practicing in an old fashioned rowing boat. These look similar to Australian surf lifesaving surf boats.

Skin divers on a Cornish Beach

The Cornish idea of a beach seemed to be a pebble strewn area, lashed by gale force winds, between two rocky headlands. The country side has a wild beauty as long as your are not caught out in the rain and wind without adequate protection. I was amazed to see people in wet suits struggling down the beach with scuba tanks to go skin diving.

Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station

Marconi Memorial at Poldhu

Sea King Airborne Early Warning Helicopter

Windmills at the Four Burrows wind farm

Cornwall has a long link with telecommunications, being the nearest bit of England to America. Marconi set up a station at Poldhu on the sea cliffs and transmitted the first trans-Atlantic radio messages from Newfoundland to here on 12 December 1901. While taking this photo Sea King Airborne Early Warning (AEW) Helicopters of the Royal Navy, with radars deployed, were patrolling the coast, from the nearby Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose (HMS Seahawk). British Telecom run what they clam to be the largest and oldest satellite station on earth at Goonhilly. This name will be familiar to readers of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, from the line: "The huge yellow somethings went unnoticed at Goonhilly ...". Apart from antennas, some thing Cornwall has a lot of is wind, thus the turbines and towers of the Four Burrows Wind Farm, near Truro.

The Lizard peninsula

Holiday Cottage in Cornwall

"A mile away from the picturesque fishing village of Coverack, on The Lizard peninsula, is an idyllic hamlet known as Trevalsoe" is how the brochure described the surrounds of this holiday cottage. There are hundreds for rent. This one has three floors, views of the village circh spire out of the fields, and a conservatory, living up to the promise.

Cows in Cornwall field

Cornish diary

The cows in the fields are not just for Bucolic scenery, there are computerized dairys making Cornish cream (as think as butter).

Penzance cybercafe

Penzance street

Before visiting Cornwall, I thought Penzance was a fictional town in a Gilbert and Sullivan musical. It is a largish town in the south east. About the only thing I found of note was that it had an early cybercafe. You can see Penzance today, live from the Cliff Hotel webcams.

Cornish Harbor

Memorial for drowned police

PCs Childs and Reid drowned when their police car was swept into the harbor in a storm on died on 13 December 1978. Standing at that point on a 10 metre high rock wall, it is difficult to imagine the force of water which came up and swept the car away.

St Michael's Mount

View from St Michael's Mount

Amphibious vehicle at St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount is the twin of Mont Saint Michel in Normandy. Like its namesake it is small rocky island a few kilometers off shore. The chapel is from the 15th-century. You can walk to it along a stone road at low tide. At high tide there is an amphibious tracked vehicle.

Thatched village building

Headland

Woodland behind the headland

Villages with thatched roof buildings are still to be found. It is difficult to tell how much of this is genuine and how much for us tourists. It would be easy to get the idea that all of the countryside is naturally open, but in areas behind the headlands, not suitable for farming, the woodland quickly reasserts itself. You only get glimpse of the view of the water, between the trees.

St Ives

Somehow I seemed to have forgotten to take any photos of St. Ives. This is a shame as it has beaches with real sand. It also has the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden. If you don't have much time in St Ives, then skip the Tate Gallery and visit the Barbara Hepworth Museum instead. It is not often you can visit where a great artist lived, worked and died, see their tools and unfinished work.