I had to decide what to do with my third and last day in Penzance before heading back east. I’d heard about the Minack Theatre, set into the side of a cliff looking out over the ocean. Having a love of live theatre, I just had to check it out.
Category: travel
Botallack Mines, St. Just, Cornwall
I was told by all the brochures that a lovely spot to go just out of Penzance was a village called Mousehole. So I decided to catch the bus there, rather than a train to St. Ives, an unfortunate decision because, though Mousehole was cute, I’d just spent three days in Port Isaac, so a fishing village wasn’t new to me. I ended up running out of time to see St. Ives, which I’m now devastated about.
St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall
One of the main reasons I stayed in Penzance while in Cornwall last year, was to walk the causeway across Mount’s Bay to St. Michael’s Mount. I’d seen photo after photo of it, rising from the water like a fairytale castle from a story book.
Penzance, Cornwall
Back in England last September, I dragged myself away from Cornwall’s lovely Port Isaac and headed down to Penzance, thinking it would be a good spot from which to explore various places on my list: St. Michael’s Mount, Poldark’s mines, the Minack Theatre and St. Ives.
Free Book Offer: Is This the Road to Stratford?
My travel memoir, Is This the Road to Stratford?, has now been published with Amazon for three months. Time to celebrate! For 5 days, from Thursday 15th June till Monday 19th June, I am offering the Ebook for nothing – zilch – FREE.
In 2011, I landed in Manchester. In a malevolent rental car, baffled by indecipherable road signs and huge roundabouts, I journeyed from Yorkshire through Derbyshire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, to London.
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Healesville Sanctuary, Yarra Valley, Victoria
Having spent months earlier in the year editing and publishing my travel memoir, Is this the Road to Stratford?, I needed a serious dose of nature to get me back in balance. My computer and I don’t get on well if we spend to much time together in our little room. Continue reading “Healesville Sanctuary, Yarra Valley, Victoria”
Lakes Entrance Victoria
The Gippsland Lakes are a network of lakes, marshes and lagoons, covering an area of around 350 square kilometres. From Bairnsdale, I followed the Princes Highway, as it snaked its way down and around a point known as Jemmy’s Point.
In 1889, a wall was built to fix the position of a naturally occurring channel between the lakes and Bass Strait, to stabilise the water level, create a harbour for fishing boats and to open the lakes up to shipping. Hence the name, Lakes Entrance.
The Lakes, South-Eastern Victoria
I decided last week I needed some R&R and some nature, so I headed down to Victoria’s lakes district on the south-east coast. I’d been promising myself I would explore the area for years but somehow hadn’t got round to it. I stopped the first night in Bairnsdale, before taking the last 38kms down to Lakes Entrance the next day.
The Old Post Office Medieval Hall House, Tintagel, Cornwall
After my slightly disappointing visit to Tintagel Castle, I hitched a ride up the hill on the mini bus they provide (thank heavens, one less Cornwall hill to negotiate) to the village. While waiting for a bus to take me back to Port Isaac (I was never quite sure, while in Cornwall, whether or not a bus was going to come), I wandered up the main street and came to a 14th century medieval hall house. It has the most gorgeous undulating roof and walls, and I absolutely had to go in for a look.
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Tintagel Castle Cornwall
I thought, while I was in Port Isaac, I’d catch a bus out to Tintagel. There’s a castle there, or the ruins of one. It was built in the 13th century by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry 111, with an outer bailey on the cliff tops of the mainland and an inner ward with a great hall and chambers on an isolated and inhospitable rocky headland.
