St Mawgan

St Mawgan Monday 25

I Left Helston and my lovely room in the morning  and headed towards my next stay in St Mawgan's near Newquay, I most definitely did not want to stay in Newquay, besides the only airbnb showing up in Newquay for my budget range was above a surf shop which was I suspect a hostel. The only other time I booked to stay in accommodation above a surf shop was in Punta Hermosa in Peru and it was a bit of a nightmare, firstly I couldn't find it for ages and when I did it was on waste land and no one seemed to be running it but there were just a bunch of stoners out the back. Inside it wasn't much better and not wanting to wait until I was robbed I left and found somewhere else in town to stay, the 'surfing' beach was also ridiculous as it was a tiny bay in which you probably had a few meters of surf before you got dashed on the rocks, it was also 50km from Lima with a limited bus service.
    At least I wouldn't be stranded in the same way in Newquay but there is a certain Blackpool tackiness  about it. Still - none of that mattered as I wasn't staying in Newquay.
Not far from St Mawgan there's a fantastic owl sanctuary called Screech Owl Sanctuary, they had every sort of owl. Owl facts: Owls with orange or coloured eyes are day time hunters, owls with dark eyes are night or dusk dawn hunters. Barn owls rock from side to side when they are happy. Owls are lazy and would rather get fed that go hunt. Owls eyes takes up about 70% of their head compared to our eyes take up about 5%. Owls imprint on a person looking after them and after that the owl is almost like a pet to that person, it takes a long time to get an owl to accept new people after that. Big owls look a bit like penguins.
    After the owl sanctuary I wanted to see Bedruthan steps at Carnews, a bit of coastal loveiness with sea stacks are strewn along the beach with steps down to the beach. I saved £5.50 on the parking with my National Trust parking sticker. On the way down the steps a very large lady on her way back up had stopped to cling to the railing only a few steps away from the top looking like she might not make the last 5 steps. I wondered if she's still be there when I went back up. The tide was still out to walk through the sea stacks to the next beach and then scramble back up the hill so I never will know if the fat lady made it back up.

Bedruthan

I was staying at nice airbnb once I eventually found it, I only had a post code and 'St Mawgan' despite sending texts during the day to advice my time of arrival and also asking for the address I heard nothing back. I managed to pick a house whose occupant knew who I was talking about, thankfully St Mawgan is small and just round the corner I found the right house. Which isn't bad  going considering all the houses in the village share the same postcode, when I put post code into Google Map it came up with a specific house - the house of the helpful neighbour. It turned out my host had lost her phone that day, but hadn't thought to check her airbnb messages via her computer. My room was lovely and my host very horse and hound, Horse and Hound magazines were abound, they had a horse and all discussions involved horses, there were also some hounds to complete the picture. It was quite difficult to have a conversation as my hosts attention was constantly distracted by the dogs, probably mistaking the dogs for a sort of people, or something else that she had just thought of which meant phoning someone or leaving the room and would then and forget she was half was through a conversation. Thankfully her daughter was very helpful in showing me where vital things were, like coffee and mugs so I didn't have to go through the ritual of opening every cupboard.

Baby Eagle Owl

Padstow tuesday 26

There seemed to be some sort of event going on in Padstow, the streets were jammed packed but it turned out just to be people shuffling around buying tat and eating pasties and ice creams. One lady had her handbag in a pram, perhaps the pram used to contain a child but had been swapped for the handbag.  It was a very shiny bag. On the harbour side rows of stalls traders braided little girls hair and the next set of stalls traders gave them henna tattoos. It was ridiculously busy, so I headed out of the town onto a grassy hillside to look at the estuary, which lead to a busy beach and the coastal path beyond which became quieter and after the last tea shop had been past, there were not many people around at all. This was a good thing as I was desperate for a wee, the track split before the end of the headland and I took a lower path and enjoyed a nice alfresco wee overlooking the water. I then just sat looking out at the estuary for half an hour or so before walking back along the beach as it was now low tide and then back to the car park on top of the hill.
    On the way out of town I stopped at the busiest Tesco's car park in the country to get an avocado and some salmon and a weird man starred at me whilst I exited the car park. Weirdo, perhaps it was because I wasn't in a WV camper. Cornwall has the highest density of restored WV Campers in the world, that's a fact. If you don't believe me just visit Cornwall.
    Back in St Mawgan I spent some time writing and listening to the church bells that rang every hour, it seemed very nice and relaxing to hear the regular bells, even in the morning I didn't have to look at anything to tell the time, just listen to the bells.