17.09.2011 – 17.09.2011  17 °C

Early start today as I couldn’t really sleep in my hostel bed (wasn’t super comfy) and there really was no reason for me to hang around Torquay any longer than I needed to, so I got up and got going to see some of the surrounding suburbs and castles on the Devon coast. Unfortunately I had gotten going too early and so nothing was open, so I settled back to just do some suburb touring… Eventually 10am rolled around and I made it to Dartmouth. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the town of Dartmouth is at the mouth of the Dart river about a 40mins drive from Torquay. It is one of those little fishing villages that you see on TV when you think of Devon or Cornwall. Small town set on the cliff, that surrounds a small inlet/ bay of aquamarine water, small fishing boats bobbing up and down… Aah! Really, really pretty. The castle itself (like most castles) is a fort and wasn’t’ actually a living space for the king or something. It was built to protect the inlet to the Dart river which at one time was a trade route to central Devon.

The castle was in itself quite boring to look around.. I more went inside so that I could climb up on the battlements and take some shots of the river and its surrounding hills. Honestly, it is a pretty glorious place to have a small castle and it’s such a beautiful day to day that I didn’t want to miss the sunshine!

From Dartmouth I continued driving south along the Cornish coastline towards Land’s End. I made another stop on my way south and this was to the Eden Project. The Eden Project was made famous by one of the James Bond movies (the one with Pierce Brosnon and the ice palace thingy in Iceland.. if you remember inside his palace the baddie had two bubbles that had inside them plants and stuff.. this is the Eden Project). The Project was setup over ten years ago and was the brain child of a local environmentalist and philanthropist. He turned this old disused open cut mine into his version of the garden of Eden. The entirety of the old mine is covered in plants and parts of it are enclosed in three huge glass bubbles that are the world’s largest conservatories. Two of the bubbles house this huge rainforest (it’s so bizarre to go from about 15 deg into a hot rainforest at well over 35 deg and humid!!) fully equipped with flying fox and viewing platforms and the other one was filled with a Mediterranean semi-arid landscape.. Quite bizarre to find this very well setup tourist attraction in the middle of nowhere!

Finally, continued my journey late in the afternoon to Land’s End. WOW is all I can say.. The hostel I’m staying in is on this wild deserted moor right on the coast. It’s an old farmhouse that has been converted into a hostel and my room looks right out over the ocean.. This is Cornwall and I’m so glad I’ve come.. its everything I thought it would be plus more!!! Outside the hostel are numerous walking trails that take you up and down the coastline and over the moor to the little neighbouring town of St Just. I went for a walk this afternoon to Cape Cornwall.. it’s almost straight up this hill but gosh it is so, so beautiful… I’m so glad I’ve got a couple of nights here on the coast.. I just wish I had’ve booked more! This is why I came to England………