Sunny St.Ives

After leaving the Isles of Scilly, we stopped over again on the Penzance Harbour car park before moving over to St.Ives for our stay on the Camping and Caravan Club Temporary Holiday Site at the Rugby Club. After sorting out a suitable pitch at the top of the site (more later?) we have put up the awning tent and off-loaded our camping stuff to give us more room inside!
AND - the sun came out for what has been a superb week, if still windy.

View from our pitch across the Bay

Bucket ready - requirement of the Site

One thing we wanted to be able to do is have enough electricity for our needs, without having to run the van engine. So far we had got a Maplins 13W suitcase solar panel though this has shown to be way inadequate other than to trickle charge. So just as we left Knutsford we bought a 28W solar panel. Together they give enough to charge the battery for our mobiles, and the lights/pump. However, they struggled to charge the laptops.

Our 2 solar panels on the dashboard

As it happened, near us on the campsite was a bloke who runs a motorvan service - we decided to ask him to put a bigger panel on the roof - a 100W. Yes, there's the expense but the result is that there is sufficient charge (even in cloudy conditions) to charge our appliances.

As the weather has been so good, we've been on the beach and into the delightful town.

This is pasty-land and the gulls give you that beady eye look!

"Give us your pasty!"

The picturesque St.Ives Harbour

The diet works! Wetsuit city!

All readers - please note the advice from the citizens of St.Ives.

It's not all beach here - we went to the famous(?) St.Ives Jazz Club to see Mike Westbrook's Big Band. They were absolutely brilliant with a full line-up - the 4 trumpets all taking solos and doing a number with flugels.

We've had a lovely fish restaurant meal and have taken a coach trip to the famous Minnack Theatre to see the comedy play 'The Complete Works of Shakespeare - Abridged' which featured at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival some years ago - an excellent performance against a stunning visual backdrop.

"All the world's a stage ..."

Minnack Magic!

We're now halfway through our time here - seems we've been here for ages.
Pretty distracted by the excellent Olympics!
Well done Bradley Wiggins!

St.Martin's - More photos

With our Camp Managers - thanks for a great time!

We back on the mainland now and have a strong 3G signal - can see the mast from our motorvan!
So here are a few of the photos giving an idea of life on St.Martin's.

Great news – the weather has picked up and although we've had heavy rain overnight or part of the day, overall it's been sunny though feels colder in the wind.

IoS Weather Ratings

Day     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Rating 610  4  8  5  6  5  6  5   9   5   6   5   7 10   7   7   9   9   9   8   5   6   8   8   6   7   8


Exotic flowers!

Lovely garden flowers are everywhere

Cromwell's Gun Tower on the Island of Tresco - taken on a great day's walking there!



Gunners' view up the Sound


Window from the Island Church depicting St.Martin dividing his cloak for a needy man





Quiz question - what is this and it's use?

An unusual shot of the bow of the Scillonian III

Ferry across the Atlantic (a bit of it anyway!) - back to Penzance and terra firma

We are now on the mainland and at a Caravan and Camping Holiday Site in St.Ives.

And - the sun is shining - hooray!

St.Martin's - seals and sun!

I had a problem loading last night - wifi here is intermittant!
Anyway, here are my weather ratings so far this camp!

IoS Weather Ratings
Day     1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Rating 6 10   4   8   5   6   5   6   5   9   5   6   5   7 10   7   7   9   9   9

Hopefully the spacing will be OK - anyway, you'll get the drift as we have had 7 sunny days on our tiime here so far. It's just rained!

Good camoflauge!

This post has pics of our great boat trip around the Eastern Isles to see the seals. We also got to see a couple of gannets, a peregrine which nests on Ragged Island, razor bills aplenty and a school of porpoises.

Chris lookng out for seals

The sun has been very bright on the few sunny days making photography via our little Sanyo camera a challenge. Also, the camera video sequences taken don't seem to transfer well to the blog. Here I am holding the side of the boat as we rolled and pitched our way aroud the north islands towards Round Island, where there is an automatic lighthouse, established in 1887.  



Anton at sea

Round Island Lighthouse

It is said that the youngsters take a boat through the gap!!



St.Martin's - rocks and run!

We've been camped on the island for 2 weeks plus now. Inevitably, the talk has been about the weather – apparently the worst summer for very many years!

Here is my weather rating chart so far. The rating doesn't indicate the enjoyment of each day which has been very high, rather the weather conditions we are experiencing. We've adapted our activities to suit?!

Our new, bigger tent has been an advantage on rainy/misty days as we are dry and warm with plenty of head room. Rain largely equals reading and both Chris and I have read a number of books (an enjoyable though infrequent activity for me – they have been about railways and canal builders though! Now onto Bryson's Shakespeare.)

Home for a month!

Campsite from the main road!



Heather and gorse on the tops



Campsite Beach

St.Martin's is relatively big which is giving me a great area to run over, with stunning views. I have been running every 2/3 days with some swimming in between.

The area is a gritstone base with heather and gorse and grass tracks making running an absolute delight.



Top rock - a scramble to the top! L.H. Outcrop.



My running routes take in some rock scrambling and a longer ridge run upto the DayMark. This was built in 1683 and originally painted white and it is said all red before the red/white stripes.



A good climb and a scramble to the Day Mark @ 47m







The Day Mark viewed from the ruins of the old Napoleonic Signal Station.

However, it was supposedly mistaken for the St.Agnes Lighthouse (further SW and built in 1680), an event recored on a small gravestone St.Martin's Church yard – see photo – which is given a date of 1830. The 'Hope' is one of many hundreds of ships to have foundered on the Scilly rocks [the latest being the container ship the 'Cita' in 1998].



Gravestone in Churchyard







Arriving at St.Martin's - Thurs 21st

The voyage to the Isles of Scilly takes about 2hr 40mins,  more into a heavy sea. Today, our conditions were described as a slight swell, though it rained heavily and we went below. There was a tug and an empty tanker moored off Penzance.

This video clip from the rear deck gives a feel of the swell.

This plaque showing the building of the MSV Scillonian III gives a date of 1977, the same age as our narrowboat! The ferry has had a number of re-fits and improvements since then (as has our boat!).



The lighthouse and rocks at Land's End


It was still raining as we arrived at St.Mary's and awaited for the St.Martin's ferry 'Voyager' to come alongside to take us over to our island home for the month.





St.Mary's Quay!

 

The campsite managers bring the gear up to to the campsite in their tractor trailor – we walk. Here is all our stuff and the tent erected – facing west?!

How many bags?

It's taken a few days to sort out the internet connections – the campsite is on wifi and happily we have got a signal albeit slow (when the weather is fine!)

Everything seems OK and we have quickly settled in. I've had a swim – cold though bracing! - a bbq on a wonderful Friday evening and a very blustery and rainy night last night! Next week looks reasonable as well?

Ferry to the Isles - Thurs 21st June 2012

We packed our camping gear in the dry Exeter Services (lorry park) and were very pleased as the rain came in as we drove west. Our plan was to stop over on the Penzance car park – we had seen other motorhomes do this in the past. On this occasion we were the only van, parked near the harbour right under a helpful light. This turned out to be the spot where the local lads congregated in their cars! They had gone by 11.30pm and we settled to a good night's sleep and a £2 parking fee!

Soon morning arrived with the sound of a crane at work, lifting a small yacht into the harbour.

This was our prompt to pack the duvet and last things and move onto the quay to off-load our gear, then park the motorvan in the Cattrans secure parking for our 4 week stay on the Isles. We took a lot of gear – but then 4 weeks is also a long time! Home from home so to speak, or is that van to tent?!

The container of passenger luggage goes aboard

We last did the ferry crossing in May 2007, the excitement remains the same with iconic views of Penzance and St.Michael's Mount.



The iconic St.Michael's Mount - to be visited later this summer?

We had been up at 6, now the hooter signalled our 9.15am departure.

We're on our way!



Motorways and Mud!

We've set off on our summer holidays, our tour of the South West. Today we said farewell to Cheshire for 3 months and headed down the M6/M5 to Somerset. Arriving at 5pm, we could have gone further though our plan was always to split the drive to the SW.

Our chosen small overnight campsite is in the lee of Brent Knoll.
You see this from the M5 just south of Weston-super-Mare - this time we drove to it!
This is the prominent 449ft hill that rises from the Somerset Levels. Brent Knoll has seen human settlement since at least the Bronze Age and was also an Iron Age Camp with multiple ramparts following the contours of the hill, broken only by the main entrance on the eastern side. [History notes for Chris.]
Before the Somerset Levels were drained, Brent Knoll was an island, known as the Isle (or Mount) of Frogs, that provided a safe haven from the water and marshes.  According to legend, Ider son of Nuth, who was one of King Arthur's knights, came to the Mount of Frogs on a quest to slay three giants who lived there.

The field is still rather soft from the recent rain. Muggins here decided to find the perfect spot by attempting to drive across the field and got bogged down in the middle!! Another motorvan owner came to help and we got it to higher and firmer ground!


The muddy bit that we got stuck on!!

Anyhow, we're on our way!!
Also tried out the video facility on our camera - Mrs.W gives her view of today!