Travelling in the west country

Cornwall Blog The journey to Cornwall was slower than expected. Google maps and my Tom Tom both said just over four hours. I thought this to be optimistic – and slow patches on the M25 and M3 and a one hour tailback on the A303 around Stonehenge - meant it took closer to six. But the second half of the journey was lovely and much more scenic than blowing down the M4 and M5. The high ridges of Wiltshire gave wonderful views of the plains below, golden with wheat, some already harvested and stacked with straw bales (farmers here opt for tradition rather than the modern silage bags). Hopefully the heat and dryness of the past few weeks should give farmers a better (and more suitable) wheat harvest than they had last year. Further west, the roads got truly hilly as one passes through Somerset and Devon and finally to the imposing Tamar Bridge (built alongside, and almost exactly 100 years after Isabard Brunel built, the Royal Albert Bridge train bridge, linking Cornwall to the rest of the country).

Once in Cornwall the landscape changes dramatically. The hills get steeper (necessitating one or two gear changes), the corners sharper. Then once off of the main roads the lanes become unimaginably narrow – mostly wide enough for just one vehicle, punctuated with passing places, sometimes touching one in five gradients and hemmed in with dry stone walls often with trees growing on top of them.

I found the festival site relatively easy (I used to live in this area many years ago). It’s outstandingly beautiful- perched on a cliff top overlooking Looe and its island to the west and Rame Head (protecting the entrance to Plymouth harbour) to the east. I didn’t locate my friends but everybody there was so friendly willing to get to know strangers. It’s a small gig - maybe 500 people in all – and half of them seem to be helpers. That may have helped with the friendliness – but the contrast between the country and cities where I spend most of my time was very striking.

Sometime in the evening a small flock of (rare breed) goats and sheep came with feet of my (and others’) car and tent. There is a trampled space of earth where gorse bushes provide some respite against the predominant sou’westerly winds – probably one of their favourite sleeping places. The two lead goats came to the brow of the hill and paused for several minutes sniffing the air until the second goat (the vice-captain?) turned around and away from the human intruders followed by the sheep and finally the leader of the pack. It would have been a wonderful moment to capture on film but my camera was out of reach and any movement on my part would have been sure to break that magic moment. Sadly I didn’t seem these beautiful beasts again during my stay – they must have found a secluded corner of the site to retire to.

As night feel the lights of Looe started to twinkle reflecting brightly in the cam sea and rising up the hill. Lights on the horizon marked the passage of tankers many miles south. Nothing else south of here before the Bay of Bisac. My neighbour on the campsite worked on the local ferry and was formerly a coastguard and regaled me with tales of wrecks, smugglers and salvagers.

Later in the evening I head back down to the marquee, which is full of dreads and acoustically well-sheltered from any neighbours. The headline blues band is just winding down. The audience thins out before the acoustic set and then a pair of Ds who play some of the best reggae I have heard in years I kept on going up to them ask ‘who is this?’). At one point one of the woman who played an acoustic set earlier in the day took up the mic and started toasting over the song ‘Babylon bring you down’. A another the DJ started played didge over the tracks he was playing. Yes they kept us dancing till dawn (long time since I did that).

The next day started rather late. I moved all over five miles down the coats from the festival site to a farm down the road (which I wrote about last year- link here). I spent a couple of night camping in the lovely apple orchard. This yer it was dry and warm and the vegetation much more fully developed (I was there early may last year) – giving an air of seclusion to each of the small individual terraced campsites that run along the side of the orchard. Without wishing to plug my friend’s business I think it is one f the best thought through and cared for camp sites that I have ever stayed on. Not only is each pitch surrounded by willow stands – giving it privacy but comes complete with a picnic table, fire pit (the hub of an old tractor wheel) and small supply of wood. All of this for only a fiver a night.

I spent a couple of days doing a bit of WWOOFing (some jobs - like pulling out Japanese Knotweed are perennial – I was set to them last year too) and catching up on how people on the farm are faring. I stayed there for six months or so 30+ years ago and it has retained its identity as a community (although a looser association than in the ‘hippy days’) and an organic farm. It’s an association I value and hope to retain. The last day I chill a bit, make my way down the hill to the beach (in the hope of it being warm enough to tempt me into the sea- which unfortunately it wasn’t), meet up (by chance) with someone I had met at the festival two nights before, treat myself to a (hugely overpriced) bacon sarnie before hitting the road back to London. The roads are smooth on the way – I do the trip straight through from east Cornwall to East Surrey in just over 4 hours – with just a piss stop on the way. For the first time ever I’ve managed to get 800km out of a tank of diesel (almost exactly 50L). My car must have an affinity with the roads of the South West. I’m discovering that I certainly do.

Footnotes: This piece is somewhat inspired by reading Patrick Leigh Fermor’s accounts of his walking trip across Europe (from Rotterdam to Constantinople) in the 1930s (at the tender age of 19). Written on the road - but posted from home: proofreading, links and photos to follow.