Monday 17 November 2008

8th Sept 2008 - Mullion Cove, Lizard’s Point, Coverack, Helford, Marazion

Day 7

Had a better night sleep with my MP3 plugged in, the earphones blocked out the loud snores from my fellow roommates and my runny nose seemed to have recovered. At breakfast, while chatting with the hostel staff about my plan for the day, he recommended me several places around Lizard and borrowed me the Ordinance map for Lizard too.

My first stop is Mullion Cove, which is a tad more rugged than Mousehole. I just stopped briefly here as it didn't quite capture my eyes. Next, I drove straight to Lizard village. I first walked towards Lizard's Head passing by huge open farm land. Then I followed the path and arrived at Lizard’s Point, England’s most southerly point. Lizard Point is for many ships the starting point of their ocean passage and a notorious shipping hazard. The area is famous for its carved serpentine items, which range from ornaments to the pump handles in the local public house; The Lizard Inn. Also, you'll find the most southerly café and the most southerly house of UK here. The Lizard's point Light House is just another 10mins walk away. The sky is pretty gloomy today but it still feels good to be standing at the cliff side looking down at the clear sea water. It’s started to drizzle as I reached the light house, and since it's not possible to go into the light house I head back to the village.

Feeling a little hungry, I walked around the village in search for food. Then I saw a sign“Ann's famous Pasties”so I thought I'll give it a try. The shop is actually at a residential area. The house is painted in bright yellow and the back part of the house is converted into the baking kitchen with just a small area for customers to place order. Unlike other pasties where you have quite a few types of pasties to choose from, here you can only choose the size of the pasty (large, medium, small) or opt for the vegetarian pasty. I bought a medium size for £2.50 and then walk back to my car. So far, I've tasted 3 pasties from 3 different shops and they were all different. Basically the ingredients are pretty similar (beef and potatoes) but the different lies within how mashed the potatoes are and how thin or thick and crunchy the crust is. The Pegenna's pasty had thin cubes of potatoes but they still retain the texture of the potatoes; the Cornish pasty's potatoes were more like cream so you don't really see the potatoes; the potatoes from Ann's pasty are still visible but they were more mashed and soft. Comparing the 3, I think I preferred Ann's the most.

After lunch, I drove to Coverack, another attractive Lizard village that grew up round smuggling and fishing. The Coverack harbour was built in 1724 from local hornblende and serpentine stone. Several of the cottages are said to have secret cellars for the hiding of contraband. I sat by the bay watching 2 granddads playing with their grandchildren (probably about 2-3yrs old). The grandpa dug a small pool on the sand and the grandson was busy walking back and forth with his little bucket trying to fill up the pool. I've always enjoyed seeing little kids playing by the seaside, digging holes to fill with water, building sand castles…

While driving towards Helfords, I saw this sign'Roskilyn (famous cornish ice-crem) ice cream' and I remembered my colleague, Scott telling me about some cornish ice-cream where you can go to the farm where they produce the ice cream fresh from the farm cows' milk. How fresh more can your ice cream be? There, I visited the calves and then went to the café and had a 1.5 scoops of ice-cream for just £1.50. Normally you only get 1 scoop for that kind of price outside. I went for 'Ginger Hailing' and the traditional 'Clotted Cream'. It's pretty nice. Then I walked around the farm and met 2 very playful donkeys and had some good fun photographing them.

Later, I went to Helford river. Motor vehicles (unless permitted) were not allowed to drive into the village. So I parked my car at the car park and walked in. The river is dry at the moment as its low tide. There are quite a number of thatched houses here which are lovely. Arrived at the small ferry terminal overlooking the river with quite a number of yachts and boats. It’s really peaceful and tranquil here.

My final stop is at Marazion beach overlooking St. Michael’s Mount. I parked my car beside the sea, wind down my windows, listened to the waves while eating an apple. After that, I head back to the hostel. The kitchen was pretty packed tonight. There were 4 Germans and 2 Italians cooking their dinner. I cooked myself vegetable noodle soup while listening to their conversations.

P/S: Traveling from places to places following instructions on my Tom Tom (GPS) really brought me to many small, narrow windy country lanes. Often the lanes were so narrow that only one car could pass at a time. So, it’s lucky that I didn’t have any oncoming vehicles while traveling on those roads. Boy, what would I do without my Tom Tom?

No comments: