For the entirety of the time Michal has been here, she has wanted to travel to the southwest of England and see the Devon and Cornwall area. Considering she had 1 free weekend left (because next weekend is the US-England World Cup game and therefore we will be partying it up watching that) it was about time that happened. Also on the docket for the weekend, the Dartmoor, famous for its role in both Conan Doyle's the Hound of the Baskervilles and Laurie R. King's The Moor. Kristen drove down from Cambridge on Friday and, after planning our trip out, we went to sleep planning on leaving the house by 7:30 the next morning.
We actually made it out of the house by about quarter to 8, which was a good thing because it turned out to be quite a long day. Equipped with a roadmap and the handy Vodafone SatNav, we started driving. First on the agenda was Cheddar. Yes, like the cheese. We didn't really have any plans for what we'd do while in Cheddar but figured it was on our way so we'd check it out. We arrived in Cheddar and realized that there is a large gorge there. Rather than pay 4 quid to climb the >250 steps to the top, we just opted to drive through the gorge. The drive through the gorge should have been a harbinger of the roads to come but we didn't realize it at the time. We were quite taken aback by the narrowness of the road and the sharpness of the turns but it was beautiful and now we can say we've been to Cheddar.
From Cheddar we continued our drive through Exmoor National Park. It wasn't really anything all that special or out of the ordinary, but it was nice I guess. By this point it was about 1 or 1:30 and we had been driving since 8 that morning so we were getting a bit hungry and wanted to get out of the car and just arrive in Newquay already. Although, now looking back, if Kristen had anything to say about it, she would probably have prefered if we had just skipped Newquay altogether and gone straight onto Lands End. But I'm getting ahead of myself. When we could finally see the ocean we knew we were getting close.
We finally arrived in Newquay, very hungry and very restless. First of all, I'd like to say that I LOVED Newquay. I loved the beach city feel to it and the fact that, were it not for the accents, we may has been have been in any number of California beach towns. I'm so excited to go back for the football tournament we have there in 2 weeks.
Newquay is where our.... shall we say..... troubles began. We were trying to find somewhere to park so that we could go out onto the beach and eat our long overdue lunches, and when we finally found a parking lot it was extremely extremely tight. We had, shall we say, some "car trouble" that may or may not have involved another car and extreme embarrassment for us all. If you'd like to hear what actually happened you'll have to ask me or Kristen personally because its not exactly something I will admit to on the internet. When we finally got parked and escaped all the eyes in the parking lot we enjoyed a great picnic lunch on the cliff above one of Newquay's beaches.
After we ate we went down to the water. I had to sit idly by and watch as the students at the surf school missed some of the best waves of the sets by completely neglecting to paddle and just hoping the wave would pick them up without their doing anything.... but I digress. The beach was great and sandy (unlike most of the beaches in the UK) and I really look forward to coming back and actually getting to surf.
While I would have liked to have stayed in Newquay a bit longer, we were attempting to get to the Minack Theatre before it closed so we had to leave. While driving out of the parking lot (yes, the same parking lot that had already caused us some trouble) we were forced to drive up a very steep hill into oncoming traffic. A very nice old man with quite a large moustache stopped so that we could get out, but seeing as Kristen drives an automatic car and we were significantly sloped, we inevitably rolled backwards as we started driving. However, we rolled back quite a bit and the look on the old man's face was absolutely priceless. I've never seen someone's eyes get so big and mouth get so round. Its ok, we didn't hit the car behind us or stall or anything, we just gave him quite a fright. Kristen was glad to put Newquay in her rear view mirror forever. (Incidentally, this experience is where the title comes from. It also involves Waterford in Ireland an a Napoleon reference. Ask me if you care to understand.)We did make it to the theatre in time, and I'm quite glad we did. The Minack Theatre is an open air theatre that is built directly onto the cliffs outside of Penzance. It was supposedly built singlehandedly by Rowena Cade, but I'm not sure I believe that. Regardless of who built it, it was really beautiful and I think it would be quite cool to see a show there.
The view from the theatre was beautiful and the Atlantic/Channel, at least on this side, was very clear and a teal/aquamarine blue.
From the Minack we backtracked a bit to get to Land's End, the westernmost part of the UK. It was pretty crazy to think that at one point, just a few hundred years ago, people thought that this was indeed the end of the world! There were a lot of people there preparing for bike rides from Land's End to John O'Groats (the north-eastern most point of the UK). We took quite a few "Lands End" modeling photos (all of which are unfortunately on Kristen's camera) before continuing on to Penzance.
The only thing I know about Penzance is that it is featured in Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. The only thing I know about Pirates of Penzance is the a) "For He Is An Englishman" is not in Penzance (its in Pinafore) and b) Its about duty (because they're all about duty). If you don't watch The West Wing, that reference will be completely lost on you. Even without any knowledge of Penzance, it was still nice to be at another beach town. This beach was again a pebbly one so Kristen and I enjoyed skipping rocks (or attempting to do as such). Also, because the beach was completely deserted we took a jumping picture or two. I was quite excited that I was capable of doing it because a few weeks ago my ankle would not have allowed me to jump up and down on a pebbly beach as many times as we did. We also saw some "pirate" ships so I feel like we got what we needed to out of Penzance.
From Penzance we started the final leg of our drive on day 1. We FINALLY arrived in Plymouth about 9:45 and all we could think about was food! We were hoping to find a pub and get some good old Fish n' Chips or some other pub grub but the pub in the vicinity of our hotel was no longer serving food and had the LOUDEST live music ever so we settled for Chinese food (which was actually really good) and collapsed into bed at our cute little B&B about a block away from the harbor in Plymouth.
We woke up suprisingly early Sunday morning and therefore started our day about an hour and half earlier than we had anticipated. This was nice because it allowed us to wander around Plymouth a bit before we headed out. On a sadder segue, I woke up to learn that my friend's brother was found dead the night before (at the age of 22), which was pretty rough news to take. Just remember to tell your friends and family how much you love them because you'll never have enough chances to do so.
Back to the happier parts of the weekend. We walked from our hotel to the Plymouth Hoe. The Plymouth Hoe is the large south-facing part of Plymouth bay that has a large war memorial, Smeaton's Tower, the Plymouth Dome, and the Tinside Pool.
We walked towards the harbor and saw the Mayflower Steps where the Mayflower set off towards the new world in 1620. Also departing from Plymouth were the voyages of Captain Cook, Sir Walter Raleigh and others.
From Plymouth we drove inland and onto the Dartmoor. First of all, let me explain what the roads on the moor are like. They are, in a few words, narrow and windy. Two cars don't fit on them, let alone two cars and the cows, sheep, and ponies that wander the moor without abandon. I'm surprised the Kristen still has circulation in her hands based on the deathgrip she had on the steering wheel throughout the entirety of the drive.
The Dartmoor was amazing and we spent WAY more time there than we thought we would. We started in Tavistock, hoping to find tourist information. Unfortunately, the tourism information centre was closed so we just sort of ventured onto the Moor to see what we could find. Before we left Tavistock, however, we were told off by some old British ladies. Again, ask Kristen why, I'm sure she'd love to relive the experience by telling you all about it. Anyways, we pulled off onto a little carpark before Princetown and just wandered around the Moor. It was really foggy, which totally added to the ambiance on the moor. It truly was what I imagined it would be based on the different descriptions I'd read about it.
It was really windy on the Moor but we wandered and explored a bit. One thing that really struck me was how easy it would be to get horribly and irrevocably lost on the Moor. Its really hilly but there are few landmarks to speak of. When its foggy its even worse in that you can't see very far and have no sense of distance or direction. We didn't wander very far and even so we got a bit turned around trying to get back to our car. We also discovered that Kristen knows how to speak sheep.
We arrived in Princetown (where there was an information centre) and passed by the Dartmoor Prison, a 19th century prison that used to house prisoners of war in the 1800s from the French and Indian War. The prison is still in use today but houses a fraction of the prisoners it held at its prime. This prison also featured in the Hound of the Baskervilles (-SPOILER-an escaped homicidal prison from the prison was loose on the moor and was found dead in Sir Henry's clothing. Watson thinks that Sir Henry is dead when he sees the convict).
From Princetown we continued through the Moor past Two Bridges (where we were going to try a small hike but got discouraged by the complete lack of parking anywhere in the vicinity of the trail) and then drove through Dartmeet where they had a really cute shop that sold Pixies and Garden Gnomes. From Dartmeet we continued on towards Widecombe-in-the-Moor where we visited an old church, St Pancras Church. This church had a tall tower that, during a service in 1638 was hit by lighting. Several parishioners were killed and many more injured and the townsfolk blamed the lighting strike on the fact that the devil must have been visiting the village. This served as a warning for the villagers to, shall we say, shape up.
From Widecombe we continued to Haytor Rocks, one of the more famous landmarks on the moor. These rocks were amazing and provided an incredible 360 degree view of the Moor. Thankfully the fog had lifted, but the wind had picked up, making standing on top of huge rocks several hundred feet up an interesting prospect. We made it to the top of both (took Michal a bit longer than the rest of us....) and got some great pictures. We had to take one with The Moor, (since it was in fact part of our inspiration for going to the Moor in the first place) and ate our lovely picnic lunch on the grass in front of the rocks (shielded from the wind).
From Haytor Rocks, we continued north, leaving the Moor in Exeter and driving straight through to Oxford where Kristen dropped us off and continued onward to Newmarket. All in all, it was a great weekend with some incredible sights and amazing memories. Again, I'm super glad we did the trip and that Kristen joined us and made it at all possible. I quite liked the south-west of England and am excited to see it again (Newquay in two weeks, the Dartmoor when Youval comes).
** I didn't do a "lost in translation" on my last blog but I'll do one here in honor of Kristen. Here in England, "puff" is a term for a gay man. When I use it to refer to Kristen, I clearly mean nothing of the sort. It is merely our term of endearment for Kristen because of her adorable little blond puff of a ponytail. :)
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