Cornwall 2022 – 9. A long, open-top bus ride

Tags

Canada goose, copper mine, Land's End Coaster, Little egret, Museum of Global Communications, Mute swan, Newlyn, Porthcurno, Rat Race 2022, samphire, Sennen Cove, shelduck, St IVes, St Just, St Michael's Mount, The Gurnard's Head, The Old Quay House, Tin mine

Saturday 2nd July. When I woke up, my knees reminded me that they had made quite an effort the previous day, perhaps the Frenchman’s Creek walk, or maybe the Minack Theatre steps, most likely a combination of both. So, a late breakfast, some photos,

The swan

The gang (of Canada geese)

Little egret

and a very early lunch in the restaurant of the place I was staying, the Old Quay House. Good old fish and chips. Very early because I had decided to rest my legs today, and after lunch to take a circular bus ride on the hop-on hop-off Land’s End Coaster, an hourly service.

Here’s a tourist map of the far tip of Cornwall that I was given during my 2021 holiday in Penzance.

The Hayle estuary and St Erth, where I got on the bus, are half way down, over on the right. I chose to take the anticlockwise route, which went northwards to St Ives, along the north coast westward towards Geevor, southward to St Just, then continued south, diverting to Sennen Cove, back to the main road, and out to Land’s End and back, then down, and on another detour, to Porthcurno (the home of the Minack Theatre, though the bus necessarily turned back before that), inland to St Buryan, across to Newlyn, then to Penzance, Marazion (St Michael’s Mount), and northeast back to my starting point. The bus ride would take four hours. It takes 15 minutes to get to Penzance from Hayle, where I was staying, by car.

I sat upstairs in the open-air part of the bus. It was very blowy – and for most of the time, especially along the north coast, and as the previous evening, I wished I had more clothing with me. People got on and off at regular intervals. I think I was the only person not using the bus as a means of getting from A to B. And I was able to use my senior’s bus pass.

Photo just for the record. The holiday village was in fact much nearer to where I was staying that to the town of St Ives.

St Ives harbour

Wesleyan chapel turned theatre

The beginning of the blustery conditions, along the north coast. Most people sat in the sheltered front part of the top, or downstairs.

The Gurnard’s Head hotel

Evidence of former mining

The cows won

St Just

A Land’s End Coaster from the other direction. These two passed fairly easily, but there were other encounters which were much more tricky on the narrow Cornish roads (though of course, it’s the vehicles which have got wider). Usually we won by sheer size, but once we had to back up for quite a distance. No doubt the drivers are well used to it.

Sennen Cove

Many people got off at Land’s End, and many got on.

I was not the only one who had been intrigued, as we neared Land’s End, by the banners,’Rat Race’. I took this photo as we passed on the way back up the road. I think it may have been this, the location of the start of a run from Land’s End to John O’Groats, though children were running races on site as we went by.

I had been intrigued also, the evening before on the way to Minack, by this Museum of Global Communications at Porthcurno. Definitely something to visit next time I’m in Cornwall.

Turning back on to the main road from the coastal dead end

Newlyn Harbour

St Michael’s Mount, from Penzance

I took no more photos from then in, Penzance, through Marazion and back to St Erth/Hayle.

Back at my lovely patio for the evening, the tide was well out.

It was samphire, I think, that flourished in the twice-daily washed mud.

The swan with its adopted family of shelduck

One full day in Cornwall left. And no, I didn’t see my friendly gull this day.