Sou'wester 3
| Taking a wrong turn in the lanes south of
Tintagel we arrived at Delabole and a windfarm, Britain's first, built in
1991.
Its operation saves burning 50,000 tonnes of coal each year. The annual output of the ten 32m. high wind turbines = one year's electricity consumption by 2,700 average homes.
I find these wonderful structures easy on the eye. It hummed very quietly while I lay on my back underneath it. |
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Right next to the windfarm was the Gaia Energy Centre.
Hey, this is for me, I thought and we whizzed into the circular car park. Very impressive this energy-saving building and essentially its purpose is to educate about sustainable and renewable energy. The whole experience is pretty high tech. It pointed out, amongst a zillion other things, that you can save 20% of your fuel if you drop your speed from 70 to 50mph, which made me feel bad about the T4 overtake. But, hell, how slow can you go?!
Most interesting to me of all the displays was a mill-type wheel which can sit on the sea bottom and generate loads of energy from the tide-race. The centre is aimed, I guess, mainly at 14yr olds, i.e. quite high enough for me on a brief visit. Try that link, or better, just go there. (Good food too).
From Claire, 300303 - "Just read in the local paper that The Gaia Centre is going to be sold - not making enough money." I do hope somebody manages to keep it going.
From Claire, 180204: "Went to visit today......, still very much in business".
Down B roads to Wadebridge and into Newquay, a town the traffic system of which is definitely designed to keep motorists away from the centre. We never got there, (but we had been three years earlier). VW campers are all over the place. We found a campsite at Trethiggy, (which sounds as if I've got a cold and can't remember the full name of the village).
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We saw our first daffodil farm about five miles before Redruth and shortly afterwards got a majorly big, very enthusiastic wave from a local-looking goth-punk with a determinedly pro-VW Camper glint in his eye.
Leaving Redruth we filled up with diesel and drove a couple of miles to Bridge where we passed a garage selling bio-diesel! What percentage it was I don't know, but how infuriating to have missed it. By way of a contrast, in Boscastle we'd parked up opposite the "Coal Fire Pub of the Year"! A fossilized attitude if ever there was one!
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Down to St
Ives via Hayle and Lelant.
In St Ives it was blowing... (I do enjoy nautical terminilogy), a hooligan. Notice the spray above the 1st and 2nd arches, and sand was being driven right up into the town centre. It's the quality of the light which has drawn all the artists here (pun not originally intended). |
We went to the Tate Gallery - very abstract, but there's an excellent cafe on the top floor with fine views of both bays.
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I hope all the old mine buildings in this part of the county are being preserved. Like any other mining work they'll have a history of horrible working conditions, but they are now a most significant feature of the landscape. Via Cripplesease to Penzance, (St Michael's Mount was all hazy in the sunshine), and over to St Just. The minute you leave from the north side of St Just there's a feeling of prehistory and this end of Cornwall is thoroughly steeped in the stuff. We'd been to some of the sites on our last visit three years ago. As we headed back up to St Ives through Morvah, Zennor, etc., I spotted the small circular Celtic field patterns on the sunny south facing valley sides. I know for certain that had I been a prehistoric dude then this would have been just the lace for me (unless you'd found me somewhere similar on the west coast of Ireland, Scotland or Wales). |
Back to Lelant where I'd booked us into the Woodcote Vegetarian Hotel for dinner, bed and breakfast (The Saltings, Lelant, St. Ives, Cornwall, TR26 3DL, Tel: 01736 753147).
This place has been a veggie hotel for 80 years continuously and my grandparents used to stop there, so did my parents (and they went back again at the end of the month). The veggie and vegan food is superb and we had a room overlooking that part of the estuary which is managed by the RSPB.
We met a retired couple who'd booked in for 19 days (which is surely an indication of something). To avoid heavy traffic and arrive in time for an evening meal they'd left their home in Croydon at 6.30am.
Why, unless they really have to, do people live in places like that? Perhaps they have grandchildren to look after? Perhaps they don't realise they could buy a splendid place somewhere much less cluttered - and a campervan!).
They were intending to do a lot of walking on the coastal path.
We stayed up much too late watching Comic Relief.