Today was a more relaxed start to the day. We have planned to leave the car behind and walk into Falmouth again and try to catch a ferry to St Mawes for the afternoon.
It was just before 10am when we stepped out the door and headed to the coast. It was 10.20am when I stepped back in when we remembered we had forgotten to pick up our English Heritage cards that we hoped to use later. Karen carried on walking, and I eventually caught her up sitting on a bench on Swanpools beach.
The weather was delightful, and we sat for a while watching groups of children being taught various water sports in the shimmering sea.
We walked on and ascended the coastal path up the cliff to Gylly Beach. It looked pretty in the sun. After a brief toilet stop, we headed across the headland and ended up coming back at Discovery Quay. We decided to pop into the Tesco Express to buy a couple of meal deals for lunch and then carried on through the rapidly filling streets of Falmouth.
It was time for a caffeine refuel for Karen and so we used one of vouchers to get her a Latte at Café Nero. We sat for a while at one of their outside tables watching the world pass by.
We were now ready to seek out a ferry to St Mawes and headed to the booth selling the special offer tickets of £5 return which was undercutting all the other operators by 50%. Sadly, we had just missed the 12pm ferry and so instead found a bench in the sun on the pier and ate our meal deals. It was all rather nice.
At the appointed time we went to dock 4 and waited for our boat to arrive. We bagged some prime seats at the back of the boat. It was a 20-minute trip, and it was glorious trip. The captain confirmed over the tannoy that there wouldn’t be a return trip as advertised at 2.30pm as this was the time of one of the lowest tides of the year. Indeed, as we arrived it sounded and felt as though the hull was scraping the bottom. As I got off the boat, I could see that this was in fact the case.
Our arrival was somewhat marred by the fact that it became apparent that Karen was paranoid about getting onto the 3.30pm ferry back. She was convinced as the 2.30pm was not running it would be a scrum. Not that it mattered if we caught the 4.30pm or even 5.30pm back, it took some persuasion to lead her away from the dock as I think she would like to have started queuing now.
In the end though even she could see this was pointless and we had look round the very pretty village. There must be some local planning rules which state that all houses must be painted white or in a very light pastel colour. It was almost picture card perfect.
The trip across was I guess 2 – 3 miles. A drive here from Falmouth would be 26 miles and take the best part of a hour. The roads in the village are also not really suitable for vehicles.
We decided to walk the cliff road along the coast up to St Mawes castle. It sat on the headland directly across the harbour from Pendennis castle. It was managed by English Heritage and so we used our cards to gain free entrance. I felt it was more of a watch tower than castle. It was small and seemed to be mostly intact.
The setting though was fantastic. With the sun out in full, the views over the seas all around us was breath taking. This alone made the whole trip worthwhile and was as good as you can see anywhere in the world. We sat for a while on a bench in the grounds and drinking in the scenery.
I would have sat longer but I knew Karen was itching to get back to the dock and so after another toilet stop, we headed back down to the dock and joined a queue. There were lots of people hanging around, but it was well organised with separate queues for the different boat operators. As boats were only just now allowed to dock after the low tide and there was only one dock there was a queue of boats waiting to get in. Our boat had to wait for 2 others so to unload and load before it could dock, and we could get on board.
It was another lovely trip back. It almost felt as though we were back in Sydney although not as busy or efficient. We both really enjoyed it.
However, disembarking in Falmouth meant we had to get back on foot to our base. Again, Karen refused to contemplate public transport, so we set off walking again. There were two long steep climbs we had to climb and one steep descent. We took our time and 45 minutes later we were back.
I fancied a pizza delivery tonight, but Karen didn’t. She made do with the food we still had with us whilst I ordered pizza. It arrived after 40 minutes and was very nice.
The rest of the evening we chilled and packed ready for our departure very early in the morning whilst listening to the cup game from Carrow Road.
Cornwall – clap clap clap. It took a while but you delivered. We’ve had a really good time.
