Our English Adventure #8

For the first four or five months of our stay in Plymouth, we didn't have a car and so it was the bus for us. Dad intended to see and experience as much as possible in the few short years we would be in Britain, and so every weekend we were out and about, and coach tours were the way to do it. The season was going into winter, but the coach company operated on the summer schedule for reasons known only to themselves, and most times we departed from the depot in the dark, returning later to a similar situation. That is probably why my memories of Plymouth involve buses and travelling in the dark.

We explored the counties of Cornwall and Devon in this fashion, our travelling companions mostly being pairs of old ladies on a day out, wrapped up in warm coats and cosy hats even when the sun shone. The Cornish villages were simply stunning, with little fishing harbours and a few rows of neat houses up on the cliffs. Our ancestors can be traced back to the village of Corfe Castle in the 11th century, and I have always liked to imagine that one or two were pirates or smugglers! Looe and Polperro remain on my wish list to return one day.

The rocky promontories of Land's End were reminiscent of our own Cape Point, the south-western tip of the continent of Africa, which has its own fearsome seas, submerged rocks and lighthouses, but I think both headlands bear a similar brunt and it would be difficult to say which had the worst weather conditions.

The beaches were quite different to what we knew back home. Torquay was pebbles and the weather was freezing, but a woman actually went in for a swim and Mom said she had the biggest goosebumps she had ever seen.  Newquay was sand. When we arrived, the tide was out and a vast expanse of beach stretched away into the distance, but once the tide was in, it reached up to the cliff and there was no beach at all!

The tours included lunch (egg and chips, or baked beans and chips, or sausage and chips, but never all three) and I suspect that we were seeking shelter from the icy air rather than looking forward to lunch when we went into the cafe to eat. I suspect that little has changed on the bill of fare to this day.

To stave off car sickness on the journey, we would suck on our favourite sweets, Opal Fruits, which were similar to the Sugus back home, except bigger. I wonder if you can still get them?