Adventures ft. the Atlantic

I'm sitting on my bed at almost midnight trying to find the perfect words to open this blog post about possibly best weekend I've had in a while and all I can think of are the lack of words in my dictionary to describe any of my experiences.

I could go on and on about the 9 hour traffic filled car ride from Manchester to Cornwall that drained my life out of me and how I spent most of it analysing the contents in people's caravans and cars driving along with us on the motorway, the rolls of toilet paper visible from their back seats, the Nike hiking trainers, the pissed off and bored siblings in the backseat hitting each other with their empty Capri Sun juice cartons, the sleepy 6 year old girl (I'm assuming she's 6...she looked around 6) trying to keep herself awake by poking her ugly looking teddy bear that clearly needed a wash or the granddad in major need of botox with the huge headphones nodding his head as he tried to speed ahead. 

But instead, I'm going to jump straight into talking about Cornwall... (you thought...)

We stayed in this super cute B and B called Elysian Fields in a small town near Helston. If you'd been driving to get to Cornwall for as long as it ended up taking my family (almost 9 hours), you definitely wanted to spend the night in a B and B that was going to give you the best. 

We woke up bright and early the next day to be greeted to the ugliest of days I've seen in a while. The mist was incredibly discouraging considering it looked like limbo which ever way you looked. I literally couldn't make out what was on the other side of the road because of the mist. Then came the rain and so my friends and I (there were 2 other families that we were there with who we are very good friends with) sat down to try and find places to go to nearby. After getting over the fact that the wifi and internet connection there was horrible, we managed to find 4 good places within 30 minute drives of each other near Helston to go to. We decided the rain wasn't going to stop us despite the Goggle results for the 'top 10 things to do in Cornwall when it rains' being rather discouraging (with number 10 very blatantly telling us to stay indoors and watch DVDs).

Our first stop was a small town called St Ives. It was about a half hour drive from our B and B and we got there in no time, parking our cars and heading straight down to the beach. I've been to the beach very few times in my life but after this trip, I finally understand why so many people enjoy spending time at the beach. For me, it wasn't the idea of stripping down to a bikini or beach shorts or even building sandcastles (you can tell my references are minimalistic and only driven from stereotypical movie scenes and tumblr pictures); it was simply squealing every time I felt the incredibly cold and still somewhat equally as exhilaratingly fresh Atlantic water under my bare feet every time the time came in. 

There was something amazing about simply watching the water roll in back and forth in front of your eyes and look out as far as you could to realise you were at the edge of an ocean that went on for miles and miles. The fact that I was a tiny speck of dust stood on a beach when the waters before me vasted out to entire continents and places I'd never been to. What I loved the most about the beach was the mindset it'd put me in and I thank St Ives with all the might in my feeble heart for that. 

We walked along the beach for what seemed like hours before finally climbing up a few stairs to get to all the rocks surrounded the coast. My feet were already covered in wet sand and I'd long ditched my shoes anyway and so I braved walking across the rocks with my mum as far as I could. It was my first try and I was too much of a wimp to go too far but my mum climbed all the way out near the water. 

Only googling the map of St Ives do I now realise the beach we went to was the smallest beach in St Ives. Porthgwidden Beach. I've even circled it on the picture below for your convenience.

We only spent around 2 hours there but looking at the map, it makes sense that next time I visit Cornwall (which I hope to do for sure real soon), I have to convince my parents to stay there much longer than 2 hours. I especially wanted to make my through the shops in the town because there seemed to be tons of art shops that we drove past that I never got to go to. One downside, the roads were incredibly narrow and big cars would have a hard time manoeuvring around, but as soon as you got to the beach, every struggle in your life really seemed worth it.

Our next stop was a place called Botallack. By the time we got there from St Ives, the rain really wasn't playing in our favour and so we didn't get to spend as much time there are we wanted to. My friend who's a huge fan of the BBC series, Poldark, wanted to visit the mines in Botallack but the area was all sealed off and we didn't do much there other than sulk in the rain and overlook the fields that needed some serious trimming. The entrance to the mine said it was 'private' and despite the scenery looking somewhat welcoming, the weather really did ruin the whole vibe. Some may call it a 'Cornish catastrophe'...and by some, I mean me. 

The stupid mist didn't make it any better and I concluded Botallack to be my least favourite place of all the one's I'd been to. Only now do I realise, we went to the wrong place and this is what Botallack is really supposed to look like...

Land's End was our 3rd spot to visit for the day. If you've heard anything about Cornwall or the South West coast of England, you've heard of Land's End. In plain terms, it the the western most point of England. It's famous for...being the western most point of England. That's about it...

Personally, I wasn't all to fond of the tourist place thingy they had around the place. There wasn't really much to do other than take a picture with the Land's End signpost and going to the First and Last House.

By the time we looked around the tourist centre, everyone was so hungry we didn't collectively spend more than 30 minutes there.

Here's a note for any future Cornwall visitors, if you're hungry, don't put off eating for the next place you're going to and then the next because it makes you very groggy and not want to look around and enjoy the scenery. The tourist centre didn't have a restaurant that did fish and chips which is what we wanted to eat for lunch and so we drove about 5 minutes back the way we came and had lunch at this super amazing chippy. The fish was great and so was the complimentary orange juice that we got.

Our last stop for the day was a place called Porthgwarra.

To say I was exhausted was an understatement and yet driving down the ridiculously steep and narrow roads towards the cove in Porthgwarra will be something that I'll remember for a very long time. We drove past huge houses that were more or less just balanced on or being supported by a random rock on cliffs. Then there were houses hidden in between huge trees and I just thought how serene and yet dangerous living a life here would be. The rather alive and 18 year naive part of me contemplated the prospect of mystery and adventure and ambiguity living in the middle of nowhere would give me and then there was the realistic and sane part of me that just began panic about the idea of me dying inside my house because it would take a rescue plane about 50 hours to find my damn house.

I know. I'm very cheerful!

Porthgwarra was a particular favourite destination of my friend's because Poldark was also filmed there. The view we had of the beach was incredible...once we'd trekked down the incredibly steep and slippery (because it'd been raining) path to get down to the cove.