Tintagel and Lydford Gorge

It's 160 miles from St Mawgan to Weston-Super-Mare via Tintagel and Lydford gorge which are approximately en route.  As usual I underestimated the distances and how much I can actually do in a day, by 10am I had arrived at Tintagel 28 miles away and it was mostly empty of visitors at this time. There seemed way too many car parks for a village of that size, I parked in one with an attendant just across from the old post office building for £2. The toilets on the high street cost 20p to go in, but if you go up the road to outside the information center the toilets there are free, although you do get a nicer experience in the 20p toilets.

    After visiting the old post office building I went down to the Tintagel castle built half on the mainland and half on the island headland with steep steps connecting them. King Arthur was born here and Merlin's Cave is under the island, Merlin supposedly engineered the birth of King Arthur. His cave wasn't accessible today because the tide was in. There was an archaeological dig going on when I visited, with people brushing away at a series of low stone walls that could have been for anything but I'm sure they will be able to make up what their precise use was based on finding some old bit of metal or pottery buried in the soil, but I could tell straight away they had uncovered  a compound knitting elevator.  

    After returning from the castle the town was heaving and all the car parks were full with queues of people to get into them, I really wanted a Cornish pasty and went up and down the length of high street to find a cafe which firstly sold pasties and secondly didn't charge an extra £1 to sit inside and eat it. Thats $2 extra dollars to eat in! That would buy a flat white in Happy Cafe in Cuba Street Wellington, only Happy Cafe moved to Newtown a while back which is far less convenient for a lunchtime coffee stop. I really dislike the whole practice of opening a nice cafe, making it look inviting with nice temping food and comfortable looking dining spaces but only displaying takeaway prices and then appearing surprised when you want to sit in and enjoy your food at the cafe. Especially at 25 - 30% increase in price. After asking in 5 cafes I found The Cornish Bakery right back where I started at the castle end of the high street which had friendly staff and only charges 20p extra for sitting in. This I could handle so I sat in with my pasty and a cup of coffee and read one of the papers lying about.

    I also discovered in Tintagel the dogs I just call Total Bears are actually called Newfoundlands. There was one slumped like they do waiting patiently with its owner.

    Next it was 39 miles East to Lydford Gorge, after a lot of coast it was nice to get back to some waterfalls and forest. First I had to get past the kiosk welcome staff who pointed out all the 20 or so points of interest along the walk and how the gorge is laid out and etc and so on but I really just wanted to use the toilet and get on and start walking, in essence you just walk in the circle one way.  Its about a 3mile walk around the gorge, first along a path higher up through the trees up to a waterfall and returning back next to the gorge at water level before it narrows and there's an exciting bit with some exposed stone steps that lead to a dead end where the gorge closes in. Then it was a fairly boring motorway drive up to Weston-Super-Mare, there was nowhere to park need my airbnb which was much more central than I expected so had to park half a mile away and walk down. I had intended to explore the town but had ran out of time for the day.

Lydford Gorge

The next day it looked like the car had a flat tyre, but it was just almost flat. So I got the foot pump out and after just a few pumps the pump un-built itself and exploded apart, so I needed to find a garage with an air pump. At the nearby BP the pressure was 16psi! It seemed to have gone down during the long drive. The car was also rattling alarmingly and had been for a while but I was able to rendezvous with parents on their way back from the Long Mynd just north of Bristol, the rattle turned out to be nothing more than a loose plate under the engine and nothing to worry about and so on to Wales for a house sit in the Mumbles near Swansea.