Minack, Marconi, mines and mounds!

And, just like that, its already our last full day in Cornwall.  We were up and out early so that we'd have enough time to pack everything in today.  It was fun to stay at the Prison (our room was made out of 3 cells knocked together) - I can only imagine how much it costs to keep that place running (the heating!!) so I hope that it gets significantly busier in the high season than it was when we were there.  In case you are in
terested, here is the link: https://www.bodminjailhotel.com/

TOASTWATCH UPDATE: Floppy white bread toast this morning for breakfast, delivered to us by the Albanian maitre d' chap (who had a very nervous energy vibe - as if he had personally invested his life savings in the place).  It could have benefited from another run through the gerbil toaster wheel, but floppy cold toast does have its own particular charm - but ONLY when it is eaten thickly slathered in butter and marmalade.

After having explored a bit of the North Cornish coast, our remaining plans took us south, in and around the Penzance area.  We only have one day to explore, so I picked some more touristy classics - St Michael's Mount and the Minack Theater.  I hadn't been to either place before,(and I'm way less familiar with the south of Cornwall in general) so it was going to be a new experience for me too.  The very first stop of the day, though, was one of Daniel's recommendations (thanks, Spud!) to Geevor Tin Mine, about an hour and a half's drive away.  We had to navigate some gnarly roadworks en route (at one point, taking a very backroady-type detour to miss some of the traffic, despite a road sign telling us specifically not to "Do Not Believe the GPS") but we got there in the end!

ManpanionTM drives the giant winchy thing

The tin mine was really interesting and well worth a visit.  Because I'd pre-booked timed tickets for the Mount and the Theater and the mine was a last minute addition to our plans, we only had about an hour to look around.  We could easily have spent much longer there.  You can read more about the mine here: https://geevor.com/ but it was a working Cornish tin mine, right on up to 1990 when it was decommissioned due to the worldwide collapse of the price of tin.  One of my favorite places was The Dry, which was where all the miners would change and congregate after a hard day down the mine.  It was really well-done and it didn't take much imagination at all to picture how it would have been 30 odd years ago.  We also walked through the immense panning sheds with dozens of shaking tables where they would separate out the grains of tin and other precious minerals from the waste rock.  In essence, it was the same way the pioneers used to pan for gold in the river beds, but on a huge industrial scale!  Out of every 1000 tons of rock processed, they used to recover only about 5 tons of tin.  

For some reason, ManpanionTM simply
INSISTED on having his photo taken
next to this sign...

... and mine next to this one.
Hmmm...

Krusty takes the mine cart for a spin...

Safety first, you crazy cats!

Reading the little description card, I can 
only imagine the wildness of those office parties

The Dry - the area where miners used to shower and 
change

Very poignant note on one of the lockers
in The Dry

ManpanionTM counting rocks

Extremely enthusiastic chap explaining how the 
shaking tables worked.  This guy should seriously have
his own TV show

As well as the modern mine, we also got the chance to walk through an 18th/19th century mine that was mined solely by hand.  We were given hard hats before we went in and told to "watch your step and your head" - and with good reason!  It was very very narrow and tight, with only a few places you could stand upright.  I clonked my head good and proper - as did ManpanionTM, several times!  It was also very wet, with the ground water running into it - when the modern mine ceased operations, they turned off the pumps that used to remove the water and keep it dry and before long, it had completely flooded.  We were only in there for 10 mins or so, but that was enough for us, so to have worked there for 12hrs a day must have been completely miserable!

The thin narrow colored strip is where 
the good stuff is

ManpanionTM enjoying the generous
ceiling heights

We left the mine around 10.15am, to drive over to St Michaels Mount for our 11.30am entry slot.  The timing is actually important here (not just me being all anal) as it determines whether its low tide and that you can walk over causeway - or that its high tide and you need to take a boat across.   Walking across the causeway that gets revealed during low tide is part of the whole experience and the weather, amazingly, was still warm and sunshiney.  It took 10 mins to walk across the causeway, accompanied the whole time by a giant RAF helicopter that whomped-whomped overhead (a Chinook, maybe?).  They are the bumble bees of aircraft - just HOW can they fly?  Giant body, relatively tiny wings (well, rotors).  It really makes no sense.

Walking across the causeway to the Mount - note
the helicopter - its huuuuge!

The harbor on the island at low tide

After crossing the beach and reaching the Mount, we walked through the little town (no more a collection of seafront houses - maybe were all the castle staff live?) and headed up the hill (another hill!) to the castle.  It was steep and cobbly underfoot, so you had to be super careful not to twist an ankle (although, it would probably mean you'd score a trip in that Chinook, so....).  

Noisy squawky seagull

Once at the castle, we then did a self-guided tour (a fancy way to say we wandered through all the areas that were open to the public) which took about an hour.  The castle is still privately owned by the St Aubyn family who still live here today and whose portraits (both alive and dead) are peppered throughout the castle.  You wonder - as they look out of their windows at all the tourists streaming through - if they see us and hear the sounds of cash registers and are happy, or if they see us as necessary irritants to help paying the heating bills and fix the roof.  Probably a bit of both, I would imagine.

Made it to the top of the hill and the castle!

Its really very lovely - very impressive

For some reason, this chap reminded me of 
Benedict Cucumberpatch

Ornate ceiling in the dining room

Complete with stained glass windows that
might have been nicked from a local church

The eye wateringly steep drop all the way
down from uppermost walls

The town of Marazion in the distance

More ornate ceilings - this time in the chapel

With good ole St George doing his thing
with the devil

ManpanionTM with a serious case
of shoe envy

More vertigo inducing stairs....

View from the top of the Minack theater,
 looking down towards the stage and gardens

Once our tour of the castle was done, it was lunchtime so we stopped at the little cafe and had some sandwiches and a pot of tea.  Thankfully much lighter fare today than the last couple of days!  After lunch, it was time to head to our last scheduled stop of the day - the Minack Theater.  The Minack theater is an open air theater, constructed above a gully with a rocky granite outcrop jutting into the sea.  Its in Porthcurno and is only 4 miles from Land's End (which we were not going to have time to visit).  And its not just for show as it is actually a working theater, with shows and performances each year, running from Easter to the end of October.  It was the sole passion and brainchild of the founder Rowena Cade, who sounded like a remarkable, persistent woman - getting the theater built - and then rebuilt, after the devastations of WW1.  It really was impressive and was just gorgeous, sitting on the turf covered benches of the amphitheater, looking out over the stunning coastline and coves below, the sea a gorgeous turquoise blue in the sunshine.

We're over here now!

Glorious glorious views.

Yes.  ManpanionTM can nap literally anywhere.

View of the seating area from the main stage

Names of previous productions etched
into the rock

They had an Anderson shelter outside 
from WWII

As we had driven up to the theater (narrowest roads yet!), we'd noticed this large building on the left and saw that it was the Museum of Global Communications.  This perked ManpanionTM's ears up no end, as he is massively into old electronics (of any kind, really) so we decided to make a stop on our way back.  It meant that we'd have to forego our trip to Mousehole (boo) but we figured this was worth it.  It was another really well done museum with tons of interactive exhibits on - yes - how the improbably tiny little village of Porthcurno played a pivotal role as a global communication hub and shaped the history of telephony. I will admit now that I still don't Fully Understand how it all works, but it was very cool to see all the various old machines that sent and received the earliest telegrams and messages across the world. And its still mind-blowing to me that this whole Internet she-bang depends on actual physical cables. Yes - of course there are satellites - but they are much slower to send/receive data vs the signals whizzing along at bottom of the ocean. Standing before the historic telegraph cables, I couldn't help but marvel at how these slender threads once linked continents, shaping the world as we know it.

So much old electronic garbage.  ManpanionTM was
in absolute heaven.

Adorable cable layer made out Lego

Not sure exactly what these were - but I'm pretty sure we
have at least a couple of them kicking around back home

By the time we were done marveling at all the old stuff in the museum, it was about 4.30pm so it was time to head over to St Ives for our last evening.   I had booked us to stay in an old inn right on the harbor, the Lifeboat Inn - it was a picture perfect location but one that entailed a hair-raising drive through exquisitely narrrow one way streets AND navigating our way past the throngs of (oblivious) tourists who were out in force, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine, and not looking where the eff they were going.  Somehow, we managed to make it to the Inn without taking anyone out, so we parked up to unload our bags and check in, before then having to park up overnight at the long-stay carpark in town, a couple minutes away.  I felt at this point that all my Cornwall driving had been leading up to This Moment as we reached Peak Narrow and Sharp Turn, with a 90 degree angle into the tiny road leading to the carpark that was just wider than my tiny car - and that was a two way street.  I absolutely 100% ignored the sign outside the barrier that said "Car Park FULL" and fucked it into the lot - where I immediately found a space.  Sometimes it does pay to break the rules.  Our room at the inn was delightful - it was like a little apartment, with big windows looking out directly over the harbor where you could sit and watch the sun set/rise.  

Not a bad view, right?

After all that excitement, I went down to the pub for a pint of cider and to blog while ManpanionTM had a nap.  We then went and had dinner at the Thai place next door (we had definitely been overachieving on pub food and needed a break) and it was excellent.

Morning over St Ives Harbor

The next morning, the weather had finally broken and it was grey, cold, cloudy and raining.  After a farewell Cornish breakfast (which was only served between 9 - 10am!), we headed out of the Lifeboat Inn at 9.30am and drove over to Newquay airport to drop the hire car off.  I was very proud to deliver it back without a single additional scratch.  We checked in for our flight, waited for an hour and then we were off on our short little hop back to London.  After an inflight cup of tea and bag of mini-Cheddars again (PAY ATTENTION UNITED - these are a MUCH better inflight snack than a shitty bag of pretzels!!), we landed in Gatwick, quickly got our bags and were on the road driving to Cambridge by 3.30pm.

And not a tiny bag either - a full size one!

The traffic was pretty bad (Thursday afternoon plus M25 plus Dartford Tunnel plus rain is not a great mix) and the GPS was not being cooperative and kept giving strange directions.  We also had to stop and get gas as well as put air in one of the tires so we didn't get to Cambridge til about 5.45pm.  We are staying at the Hotel Du Vin - mainly because its the same chain we stayed at after our Scotland wedding a couple of years ago, so I have some sentimental fondness for it.  I had booked us into the Belle Epoque signature suite which has unique layout - think warren of tiny rooms in a subterranean basement (apparently the hotel used to be 4 separate houses, so it make a bit more sense). 

After checking in, we went for short walk to pick up my Alumni CamCard from the Porter's Lodge at Downing College (via the Department of Pharmacology and my old gaff on Lensfield Road).  It was too cold to really explore much at this point, so we decided to get an early dinner (curry at The Tiffin Box) and then walked back to the hotel (only 10mins away).  We then got a glass of bubbles to go from the bar and then watched a bit of a David Bowie documentary in the personal movie theater that was one of the rooms in our suite!  We only made it about half way through before deciding to call it a night (I was wiped after all the driving) so we were in bed good and early, ready for our last full day in the UK and last stop on Dr H's reminiscing tour!

The Hotel du Vin is right next door to my
old department, so it was very convenient
to drop by and say hello!

Our private theater room!

Plus a little private garden terrace - 
alas, too cold to sit out in