Moose on the Move!

We've been in England for most of a year, and in Exeter for more than six months but until last weekend we'd never made it to Cornwall - the neighbouring county to the west.

Last Saturday we packed an overnight bag and went west. We took the scenic route southwest through Dartmoor to have another look at the countryside and try to do a little pony spotting.

There are areas in the park where the ponies and sheep are allowed to 'run free' across the hills and dales... and roads. Some of the sheep do not have a great deal of road sense - we saw several attempt to cross the road just as a car was incoming. Luckily for motorists there are not many trees in the area and so it is fairly easy to see said sheep.

We also found some ponies standing quite close to the road so we pulled over and I slipped quietly out of the car to try and get a few shots before they got scared and ran away. We needn't have worried! Not only did they not run away but one of them proved to have a bit of a taste for car and after shoving it's head in through the window of another stopped car it began licking the dirt of the back of our Rosie! In the end it was us who ran away, scared that the little guy might want more than just a lick.

Our neighbour, Ben, told us about a beautiful spot on the north Cornwall coast called Tintagel (tin-taj-el) so it was there that we aimed for. Unfortunatly many of the roads that we were traveling on were quite small and we ended up inevitably making a few wrong turns and seeing more of the countryside on the way there than we had intended.

Reading through our English Heritage handbook on the way there we discovered that Tintagel and the castle there is alledgedly the birthplace of King Arthur and the location of the infamous round table. The short video presentation that we saw on arrival explained that this may or may not be true (it depends partly on if you believe in 'ole Arthur) but the local businesses are certainly milking it for all it's worth!

We paid for parking in King Arthur's Parking Lot (I bet he didn't even know he had one!!) and walked down the hill past Merlin's Gift Shop (we peeked in through the window but it must have been Merlin's day off...) towards the castle, or more precisely, what is left of it.

It is an amazing place to build a castle! On a rocky 'island' just off the mainland there are the ruins of many buildings including the main castle yard. It is quite a dramatic location, but unfortunately it was a bit too hazy to get any really specatular shots of the coastline. The ruins are gradually getting fewer as the coast erodes and bits of it fall into the sea below.

We weren't sure where to stay that night but we had heard of local town Boscastle so 'twas there we headed. We went for a little wander around the village when we arrived and noticed that there seemed to be a lot of construction going on. Then we realised why the name was familiar... the whole village was severly flooded in August of 2004. It is located in a narrow valley and when they received more than the average rainfall in a very short space of time the results were devastating.

Our SouthWest England book said nice things about a little place called Port Issac so we headed there next. Somehow we got completely turned around on leaving Boscastle and took off in a northerly direction instead of going south, which is where Port Issac is. Thank goodness for our dash-mounted compass.

Port Issac - a delightful little place where the village centre streets are scarily narrow and the main car park opening times depend on the tide. Yes TIDE, not TIME. After a few scary little turns and avoiding the waves in the carpark, we found a lovely little Bed and Breakfast right in the heart of the village. We had a nice dinner in a 'fancy' restaurant and then spent a couple of hours reading in bed. Fabulous!

The next morning we explored the village a little further and were delighted by the twists and turns and narrow passageways. It is a centuries old village. Over breakfast we discovered that the village has received a boost in tourism recently because a local television series has been filmed here. They weren't there this day though and in fact it was very quiet.

On our way home we decided to check out another moor and drove through the town of Bodmin and Bodmin Moor. Neither was all that exciting, but to be fair we didn't really get a good look at the Moor.

So now we've had our first taste of Cornwall we're keen to get back and see some more.