A couple of nights ago I was watching television in the evening when I could hear the sound of a large or low helicopter. I didn’t move but consulted 360 Radar and observed that it was a Royal Navy Merlin helicopter flying over. It struck me as a little odd but not enough to make me move. I see Apaches and Chinooks a couple of times a year and given there are DIO training areas in east Kent there’s reason for the activity.
Turns out I was rather wrong.
Mirror Headline
The next day there was quite a bit of news about the Special Boat Service or maybe the Royal Marines on social media although most of the mainstream press kept away from it. I probably should have followed the Merlin on 360 Radar a little longer, but my television show was deemed more worthy.
A part of the summer’s tour was to visit the West Country to see friends. As I’ve been driving around quite a bit I found some radio series to listen to. I already listen to podcasts and I do that mostly when I am running so I wanted other things to listen to while driving. I had an audio book version of Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan and then I listened to all of Cabin Pressure, a radio situation comedy by John Finnimore. Cabin Pressure is brilliant and so very well written, I’d recommend it to all.
I spent two nights at the Kilna Guest House just on the edge of Tideford. This is a few miles along from crossing the Tamar bridge and so is definitely in Cornwall.
On my first night there I went to see a film in Plymouth at the Vue cinema, I watched David Brent. On the first full day in Cornwall I has a quick run around the lovely countryside.
After that I then met with my good friend Jamie and he had a surprise first activity for us. We travelled a small distance along the A38 to Adrenalin Quarry. For a relatively small sum we were able to launch ourselves off the top edge of the quarry and fly down the zip line for 490m.
Zip Wire
It was pretty good fun and there was a video service available so we decided to do the whole thing again. Having looked into zip wires a little bit there’s one in Wales which is a mile long! I would really like to do that one. At the end of the Adrenalin zip wire we were about one metre above the lake travelling at 40 miles per hour.
The set up at Adrenalin Quarry was very professional and one of the best outdoor activity centres I have been to. I was very impressed and the technology was impressive. To get the video I just needed a code number for their website which was printed on a wrist band. Inside the wrist band was an RFID chip which I placed near a reader just before we launched off the platform. It all worked very well.
Later that afternoon the full-on sport experience continued with frisbee golf at Mount Edgcumbe House on the opposite side of the Tamar from Plymouth. We bumped into more experienced players of frisbee golf and they had different frisbees for different distances and conditions, it was quite an impressive set up and just a little nerdy!
Frisbee Golf at Mount Edgcumbe House
I have been around the grounds of Mount Edgcumbe a number of times but never actually inside [I’m not even sure if you can see inside] maybe next time I will go inside and have a nose around. Now that I’ve seen inside a few of these old houses they do seem similar and less impressive the more I see!
Mount Edgcumbe House
That evening was a meal in Saltash and then back to the guest house for sleep. I didn’t run the next morning but instead got ready to drive across the county towards the end of lands. I have other friends in Camborne and so listened to more of Cabin Pressure along the way. This was my first time to Camborne and I was curious as when I was at college the Royal School of Mines had a traditional rivalry with Camborne School of Mines and so I have been aware of this place since the early 90s!
While having a bit of an overview of the road map I noticed a monolith along the way and so I thought I should probably divert to see it. According to Wikipedia it is the largest prehistoric monolith in Cornwall. At the top of St Breock Downs I thought it’d be worth seeing.
St Breock Downs Monolith
In the picture you can see the monolith and the Beast! I managed to take a photograph of the side without a graffiti penis! According to my OS map app there was also a trig point nearby and so I walked the short distance to that also.
St Breock Downs Trig Point
The roads heading to the monolith were “classic” Cornish roads as they were single track two way roads with very few passing points. After this I stopped off for a coffee at “Cornwall Services” and then kept going to Camborne.
Later that afternoon a trip to the beach was required. It wasn’t cold nor too hot and there were sunny intervals. I didn’t take a hat and so I got burnt on my head. I should have known better.
Gwithian Beach
Clearly the southern most point of this island beckoned and the next day we travelled to the Lizard via a short time in the viewing area of RNAS Culdrose to see what was happening. We were quite lucky as there were about four Hawks doing their thing in the skies along with one Sea King. The Hawks were quite loud but not as good as the Tornados seen at RAF Marham. They were practising landings by performing touch and goes. Hopefully there’ll be F-35s here soon as they prepare for duties on the carriers.
Hawk, RNAS Culdrose
Pub lunch at Lizard and a stroll around the lighthouse and southern most point. It was very pleasant and lovely weather. One day I might have to order some pasties to get that authentic Cornish taste here in Kent.
Later that day we visited a monument on top of a hill near Camborne and from this vantage point you can see the impact that mining had on the landscape. There are small industrial buildings dotted around the place with chimneys clearly visible.
Carn Brea
And so the trip was over. The journey home was smooth enough. The roads were flowing quite well until the M25 which was to be expected. This was the last big trip of my summer although I have still to write about the biggest so keep an eye open for that!
