Waking up in a new place is always fun, especially when you arrive in the pitch black. All we could see vaguely through the mist were the solid black stone walls of the remaining pump house. They looked so sinister last night but this morning, they are just the head stones of industry gone by. The last reminder of how busy this coastline used to be. Thinking about it, people must have walked for miles to come to work here. There aren’t any houses around here where people would have lived.
We went for a walk along the coastal path, a well worn track shoeing the pointy toe of Great Britain. Just next to the pump houses was a climbers bunkhouse and people started arriving for a day on the sea cliffs. We wandered down to the edge and saw them setting up. There are some serious cliffs here, it looks amazing and made me very jealous to be out on the rock.
After blowing the cobwebs away we head into St Ives proper and found a campsite. We elected to stay in a mobile home because it wasn’t much more than the hook up fee. It also gave us a lot more space and… Well its a holiday, why not treat ourselves.
The town of St Ives had its heyday of industry between 1890 and 1900 as a fishing port and mining town, like lots of seaside towns. After this, it developed into a centre for art. There is a great big Tate gallery dominating one of the beach fronts. It’s quite imposing, Aimi was not impressed. I thought it looked a bit like a UFO had crashed into the houses and half was stuck out in mid air.
We wandered around the town and down to the harbour. The tide was out so far that we were able to walk right out into the middle of the bay on the sandy bottom. All the boats listing motionless to one side as if frozen in a photo on a sea of sand.
Its also impossible to find a fish and chip shop in St Ives it turns out. We only found 1 whereas its impossible to walk down any street without finding a traditional and authentically historic pasty shop. You’d be forgiven for thinking Cornwall-ians had a pastry fettish.
We rounded of the days walking with a stroll out along the coast and then curled up in front of the fake fire for some Top Gear re-runs, perfect.
