A lady walking along a coastal path
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Influential

There can’t be any more secret hideaways only the locals know about left. Someone calling themselves something like Travel_Insider100 has no doubt filmed a 10x speed video and overlayed it with circa 1998 fonts and shared it with their 22.8K followers who are all stunned at the location you would never believe is actually England and have since endeavoured to wild camp / swim / block the narrow lanes as soon as possible. Thus crumbles the likes of Pedn Vounder.

Now, if I had any influence whatsoever you would have known about the following secret hideaways more than fifteen years ago because they are places I go back to time and time again, usually to eat the same things, walk the same walks, take the same pictures, and espouse the same waffle. But you can’t blame me for any sudden influx of drones or sugar hit superficiality with a jingly soundtrack. I mean, you’d have to read my stuff for a start.

So off we go, again…

I believe I saw Kingsand and Cawsand recently pronounced as twin fishing villages like going back in time but without the crowds. Now in my earliest memories, there have always been some crowds, just not the crowds of St. Ives or Padstow. Unless it’s a stormy February, the ferry is always busy, the shorefront simmering away, the narrow lanes dotted with people gawping into tiny porthole windows. But there does linger a peaceful charm, even with Plymouth being just around the corner.

A calm cove with pink flowers in the foreground

A newer and arguably welcome development is a spot of half decent waterfront dining / snacking / drinking just as you scramble ashore from the ferry. There is an ice cream van also conveniently adjacent. In between eating savoury and sweet you can wander the lanes, bumble with the bees, cram into a tiny deli to suss out the local cheese, and just semi-seriously enquire as to the price of that vacant cottage. The ice cream is at least within reach.

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You’ll never believe what I have seen two or three times in the last few weeks. Someone has had a camera with them and had the ingenuity to discover one of the best half day walks on the South West Coast Path. It goes between Looe and Polperro, and, like many, I have discovered it before. It’s lovely and reasonably convenient and, yes, you can check out the top ten landmarks of Shipton Abbott if you wish. But for me the highlight is saving for a home deposit by skipping the car park fee at Polperro. There you go, a free travel hack.

A wonderful lady with a pasty and a seagull waiting with menace

Save your pennies instead for a Sarah’s pasty or two in Looe, only enjoyed on edge as murderous-eyed seagulls encircle. This provides more than enough nourishment for the undulations all the way to Talland Bay, where you can stock up again on cakes or ice cream or simply refresh with a cup of tea. Tea and tranquility the antidote to salty seagull frenzy.

I thought it was a short hop, skip and jump from here to Polperro but I underestimated the climbing which turns into a bit of a wheezy slog all the way up to a memorial cross. But it is the Polperro Parish memorial cross so that is something to commemorate, despite the village still out of sight.

A view of coastline and green hills through the trees

Walking along the coast path you’d have no idea Polperro is even nearby, such is the abrupt cleft in which the ocean creeps. It is only as you are almost upon it that an entire Cornish model village reveals itself in a glare of whitewashed cottage and kaleidoscope of bunting. The soundtrack is all gull and diesel trawler, the smells seaweedy pilchard with the odd waft of tidal mud. Lobster pots are as ubiquitous as postcards. Lanes are there for getting lost.

A picturesque harbour with cottages and boats

As we pottered about gradually inching towards the top of town and a bus stop, it was pleasing to see that some evil genius had propped open the toilets with a container of kerosene. No 60p fee today, times two. Maybe this is the best budget-saving half day adventure in Cornwall after all? Just make sure you use the toilets, free or not, because it sure is a long two pound bus ride back to Plymouth.

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Bus wankers. But check this out. People in 2025 actually being friendly and talking with one another on a bus! How quaint in white lettering with a black background. This amazing experience can happen on the 35 from Ham Green to Plymouth City Centre, where every stop is bustling with old dears and yet another hopeful pram. An old geezer in a flat cap is the latest addition, greeting the blue rinse set with a healthy morning ladies in dulcet Janner tones and a twinkle in his eye.

It almost seems a shame to pick up a car, but also not a shame at all because this is offering the chance to revisit places virtually out of reach of public transport. In cool late afternoon sunshine we head to the north coast of Cornwall, where I am keen to nudge speed limits in a quest for lush green pastures and sparkling blue sea and dream-like cake. Is Boscastle Farm Shop the best place for refreshments on the South West Coast Path?

Tea and cake and clotted cream and green hills with cows and blue sea below

The happiness of life at this point in time is amplified by free parking after 4pm and a walk out to the headlands of Boscastle Harbour. It is a tad blustery and the waves are reasonably wavy, a state of affairs garnishing the dramatic beauty of what may or may not be Dragonstone. Dark slabs of rock at angles forged in the earth’s furnace mighty enough to stand up to the swelling, pulsating ocean. Cosplay Targaryens blissfully absent.

A sinewy harbour in a narrow valley

Coastal plants with a bridge and rocks in the background

A dramatic island linked to the coastline by a suspension bridge

So another travel hack is to arrive at places like this late in the day, but not so late that the farm shop has closed. Tintagel is equally as quiet, the town sleepy with an air of desperation, the headlands peaceful with an air of salt and ozone. It’s late enough for the castle to be closed and free entry to a little part of it, the mainland part of it. Good value if you are walking the coast path penniless, fabricating encounters and manipulating illness to write a book or something.

It turns out all the characters are down at Trebarwith Strand, seemingly gathering for some kind of birthday or Friday night supper in the encroaching gloam. Bodies adorn and litter the rocks and I can only imagine slow shutter speed sunset seekers tut-tutting and rolling their eyes. The beach is disappearing as quickly as the light and even quicker than any remote hope of a majestic sky.

A rugged beach with late sun and reflections from a rock pool

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Hey, have you heard of this crazy type of rain? The locals call it mizzle and you should definitely not check it out. Despite looking innocuous it soaks you to the bone and lures you towards cliff edges. There is a sea down there somewhere but you can hardly hear it because this incredible precipitation phenomenon also absorbs sound. Wow, living my best life.

Yet for its very damp bleariness there is cocoon-like comfort associated with a walk in the mizzle. From far-reaching vistas the focus shifts to the immediate and mundane; your breath and your footsteps, the infinite shades of long grass below, the teardrop of water coagulating upon the tip of a leaf. The outline of a shady Hotel Camelot and a cat on a wall. It’s not clearing, so bugger it let’s go and get a hot drink.

A misty view of cliffs with a signpost and overlooking wild seas

If Tintagel was a little downbeat the evening before, early morning was positively ghostly. There is probably a tall tale of the spectre of a headless knight roaming the streets here seeking plastic swords and a genuine pasty. Today they are reincarnate in the bus load of German tourists that have found themselves in a branch of The Cornish Bakery, ordering pasties and bitter black coffee at ten in the morning. I feel both delighted and deflated at the realisation that their lasting impression of an iconic delicacy will be that thing there.

I just hope their cream tea experience proves more impressive. Mine certainly does. It’s a scene almost worth filming and sharing a smartarse clip where you break open the scones and zoom in on the jam and slather the cream all over a camera lens and then stroll beside the sunny cottages decorated with bright flowers hand in hand. But I don’t want to influence you or, frankly, encourage you. It is all mine to remember. Or mostly mine, for there is nothing finer than seeing your new wife embrace this experience with gusto. Totally under the influence.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking
A waterfall nestled among green undergrowth
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Free falling

I don’t often shout very loud. or make much of a fuss. Or do anything whatsoever to bring too much attention to myself. Hence my throat and lungs were aghast when I bellowed out the most almighty call from a train stood at Platform 7 of Crewe station. Before promptly apologising to everyone on board. Naturally.

The trip was never in doubt. We had journeyed from Preston where another wonderful Avanti service came into the opposite platform to that advertised, triggering mass panic and stressed luggage wheels. Inevitably departing late, we enjoyed the short journey to Crewe wedged between our luggage and the toilet. This despite having seat reservations, which are about as much value as the paper they are not printed on anymore because everything has to be on another dysfunctional app.

With connection times getting tighter by the second the train did that thing it does when you think it is pulling into the station but stops just outside for no apparent reason. We inched forward at the pace of a geriatric snail, eventually lining up with Platform 6. Encouraging as 6 precedes 7 but annoyingly across the tracks.

In the melee, several passengers shot up the steps, swinging cases and coats and bags laden with sandwiches and fruit shoots. At some point over the bridge and down the steps Avery lost some ground, while I jumped onto the first open door of the train I could reach. She looked at the carriages, lost. A group of emo teens who might well have been on their way back from the Nantwich Loser Festival separated us. Please, look for the silver hair. “AVVVERRRYYYYYY!”

Of course what’s especially silly in retrospect is the high prospect of the train waiting for everyone to connect. It’s not like the Swiss railways or anything, where trains depart on the exact second of the exact minute of the exact hour. Besides, even if we missed it we’d have an hour until the next, which we could easily pass with tea and cake.

As it was, we settled down with luggage space pleasingly spare, ordered some scalding hot tea from the disgruntled trolley mandolly and ate gingerbread as the weather brightened and the borderlands rolled by. Footballer’s Cheshire, Escape to the Country’s Shropshire, Richard Ham’s Herefordshire and then a new country entirely. Prince’s Wales.

We arrived in Cwmbran, which is barely into Wales but feels very Welsh. It also feels slightly akin to Canberra in the way you can circulate the town for ages and feel like you have been here before. I know our accommodation was on the edge of town but have no idea on its relationship to everything else.

Still, some of the other relationships were a little clearer. Fathers and aunts and cousins and then I guess all manners of association by blood, breeding and beer. Coming together somewhere out of town for a renewal of vows and a hog roast. If I dare hazard to feel I have mastered marriage in 135 days, try doing 35 years.

A feature of our time in Wales was the supposed heatwave that was coming any day now. Ideal for catching up on laundry and finding it damp after a day in the cloud. Ideal for getting sunburn that catches you unawares in the mist. Ideal for packing shorts with optimism and never using them. And ideal for cooling off beneath waterfalls if you are local and/or socially influential.

A collection of waterfalls

A waterfall taking a bend in the river

It was a good idea to head to the Four Waterfalls Walk even if the reality was tinged with little annoyances. Like not so little steps and not so little an amount of people gawping like us at nature. The volume of visitors – of which we were admittedly an additional three – necessitated car park marshals, path closures and one-way systems. People-powered erosion is working at a faster rate than that prompted by the force of water. Only one is more captivating.

With such popularity, a trick is being missed with the absence of a good tearoom at the end of the walk; on a day such as this not only would the shortbread be millionaires. As it was, sketchy phone signal and scrambling detours led us to a potential opportunity that may well still be open, though it was touch and go along the single track lanes towards Pontsticill. The Old Barn Tea Room sounds just about perfect on paper and it delivered exactly what was needed. Warm sunshine in the garden the extra icing on the cake.

A lady sitting at a table with cake and tea

Perhaps this heatwave was finally happening after all. Certainly there was evidence of bathing along the banks of Caerfanell as we ambled up past countless cascades and swirling pools. There were people here too – including a party precariously firing up a barbecue on a 45 degree slope – but the mood was calmer and more ambient. And it felt like good grace from above that the final plunging falls of Blaen y Glyn were shared with us alone. We walked back through sun-dappled woodland lifted, hearts singing inside like the birds chirruping all around.

A plunging waterfall

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The promise of shorts was finally realised on the Monday, a day in which Avery and I would leave Wales by train without too much drama. Of course, being borderline hot, the only condition was that air conditioning would invariably falter. Like Australia in the cold, Britain does not deal well with the heat.

Scenes of a supposed heatwave

Britain does do a good supermarket meal deal. Provisions aplenty for a picnic beside a Mediaeval pile. As a second choice (behind an under renovation Caerphilly), Raglan Castle offered everything one could wish for in such a facility: crumbling walls, lofty towers, regal thrones and cooling dungeons. Of course, a proximate cafe was too much to ask for but there is plenty of satisfaction in a £3.50 sandwich, snack and drink.

A castle with crumbling walls and a flag in the tower

A scene of rolling countryside under a blue sky with a castle in the foreground

While not wishing to cut things too fine, our train back into England was still a decent stretch away so we were transported to the outskirts of Newport for a coffee and slice of cake. Unbeknown to me, Caerleon is a small town rich in Roman history. Think amphitheatres and baths and all those Latin excesses. This corner of the world truly has been hotly contested.

Nowadays, one wonders whether anybody would bother to ransack Newport. They may arrive thinking someone had already beaten them to it. Although having time to wait for the train is a luxury, now it cannot come soon enough.

For not only are we escaping Newport, leaving Wales and returning to England, we are also heading home. To the Westcountry, to Plymouth. Changing trains with time to spare at Bristol Temple Meads. Time to spare, indeed, to find Feathers McGraw outside the ticket hall. A neat and tidy conclusion to This Most Whistlestop Adventure.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking
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Cornwall Coasting

In unprecedented developments I went to Looe and didn’t buy a pasty. Instead my bag was packed with a leftover barbecue sausage sandwich and bag of crisps. It was one of those cost-of-living crisis kind of days, what with the £2 bus fare as well. As if a £2 bus fare balances out a decade of incompetence and self-sabotage and party time plunging living standards.

Anyway, walking is free, as they say. And the bus dropped me off at West Looe, a tidally fulsome river away from cellars of lard and pasty caverns. If only I were a seagull. About to hop along on two webbed feet all the way to Polperro. After a snack.

This was a walk I had started once before, in my youth on a hot, sunny day. Quite probably commencing at Looe Guildhall, where antique plates or boxes with flowers stuck on were being flogged. I felt flogged climbing one hill too many and turned back to make sure I could get my body-sized slot in the back of a red Citroen van. To think I was younger and allegedly fitter then.

Let’s say some thirty-something years later, the weather wasn’t so hot but it was sunny and the shelter of the coast path, straddled between perpendicular hills and scrubby cliffs, made it feel nice. In some ways this was a reacquaintance with and continuation of my three day walk along the southern Cornish coastline last year. Only in the other direction and missing a chunk (Polperro to Mevagissey 2024 anyone?). Amazingly, it was like I’d never been away, I muttered as I hauled myself up the first skyward incline.

The steepest part of this stretch is likely to be when leaving Talland Bay, a gorgeous enclave and half way point populated by a small beach, a church on a hill and a café. The café is the kind of thing that makes the South West Coast Path such a civilised affair, despite the occasional wild meandering through shrubbery. Walk a bit, have a cream tea, walk a bit, regret cream tea as you sweat your way up the world’s steepest footpath.

I spent a bit of money on the cream tea, so after some more gentle walking surrounded by exquisite beauty I was overjoyed to enter Polperro for free. This is an unprecedented state of affairs. Normally I require a bank loan at eye-watering interest rates to visit Polperro. Today, not a penny…although I later found out to spend a penny I would need fifty pennies. The fleecing is still alive and well, including the tacky plastic King Charles Coronation flags that – a week or so after the event – were at least discounted to a pound.

Anyway, this is a far better way to arrive into Polperro than the car park of extortion. Turning a corner that you wouldn’t know was there until it is in your face, the sea surges into the embrace of a snug harbour fringed by whitewash and kaleidoscopic bunting. Lobster pots pile up along the sea wall and old bits of rope look as though they would barely tame a seagull, let alone a trawler.

A poky old pub tempts with Tribute, a bakery window is piled with scones, Roly’s fudge is being freshly made. And all I can pay for today are crumbs… admittedly delicious fudge crumbs that will be adorning ice cream for many months to come. I’ve still got to fork out for the bus ride home.

The £2 bus fares continued to tempt during May but I wasn’t convinced about taking a two and a half hour ride to Bude or Padstow. Not only because of the duration but also because you would get 15 minutes in either place before having to board the return journey. Either that or you could take a connecting bus to Launceston and then wait another two hours for a tractor to Liskeard via a maize maze and then hitch a lift to Carkeel roundabout before rolling down a hill.

So I took a train to Truro instead, got incorrect bus times online and then eventually made it to St. Agnes, a total journey time of, erm, about two and a half hours. Still, I got there around lunchtime which made it prime time for giant sausage rolls. And an iced bun for takeaway. I had utopian visions of savouring the iced bun with a cup of tea at Chapel Porth, several miles away. But following the plunge down to Trevaunance Cove and the goat track up again, icing was in a perilous state of affairs and needed rescuing.

Unlike the Looe to Polperro adventure, this was reasonably familiar ground. I had first discovered St. Agnes’ penchant for novelty sausage rolls several years back and ended up doing the same walk as today. This is not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all. For not only do you receive an abundance of the essence of Cornwall (azure seas, rolling surf, plunging cliffs, tin mines, seagulls, thrift, heather and gorse and Poldork), but it ends with a hedgehog.

This is Chapel Porth‘s signature dish, an almost impossible to control combo of ice cream, clotted cream and roasted hazelnuts. Shame that iced bun never made it here, though I still would have been quite satisfied with it alongside a cup of tea. As it was, I took the ice cream down to a rapidly shrinking beach, the tide high and a keen wind mustering the first sensation of being a bit cold today. Perfect ice cream weather, right?

All this eating might make one plump but you can pretty much guarantee you will burn it off again on the next climb. For me, this involved veering away from the coast and cutting back to St. Agnes via the beacon. It was a walk I may have enjoyed more, were it not for the fact I seemed to be in an increasing hurry to meet the bus.

With five minutes to spare, I settled under a shady tree near the bus stop, pleased to have a sit down and gather myself for the journey home. Five minutes became ten and twenty and an hour and there it finally was, grinding up a hill in a puff of diesel. Delivering me back to Truro where trains were delayed because a boat had hit a bridge. This is almost as Cornish as the old cows on the line excuse. Suddenly the two pound buses don’t sound so bad.

Not that it really mattered. What else was I to do? Other than sit at the platform and take salvation in an emergency bag of M&S crisps for dinner, thankful once again for the sunshine and the South West Coast Path. A strenuous brute of a thing that yet is so comforting, so uplifting, so more beautiful than pretty much anywhere else there is.

Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking
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Moving somewhere

So it turns out my last blog post was premature. As I left the UK, the dystopian psychodrama of Who Wants To Run The Country Into Disrepair appeared to be finally coming to a conclusion. But lo and behold it seems we only reached the credits of the extended opening episode of Season 6. Brought to you by the writers that gave us Black Mirror amped up twenty-four hours a day on LSD. God only knows how the denouement of this one goes.

Talking of writing, I see there has been much criticism of The Crown of late for making stuff up but seriously you couldn’t make this shit up. And now we have the prospect of a comeback about as endearing as the return of Kevin Spacey.

With its revolving door of Prime Ministers and warm, elongated summer full of crispy grass and fire dangers, the UK has been doing a fine job imitating Australia. All that is left is cheating at cricket and making proper coffee. Meanwhile, Australia feels more and more akin to England these days. Overblown commemoration of a monarch, escalating lettuce prices, train strikes and days in which the only hope is for a slight chink in the rain. Car picnics will multiply and tea and Digestives will soothe. If only the strawberries were better.

When I bathed in morning sun by the sea in Dorset I knew the next time I would gaze upon the ocean it would be from an Australian shore. Passing through storms, over washed out rainforest roads to a beach in Kiama. A cool breeze whipping off the surf, relieved with spells of sunshine. It was all a bit Devonesque.

I’m pretty sure I read Kiama was one of those places that had a decent pandemic…if you sold or managed to buy a property here. One of those places with tidy shops, decent cafés and a railway station. A fine work from home destination, where you can head for a lunchtime run to the Blowhole and pop on a train to Sydney for an important meeting about advertising.

Today the trains were running, though not quite on time. I was commuting to Wollongong for a glimpse of many more wheels rotating at far greater speeds. The train trundles along like a Home Counties stopping service, only with Australia-scale double decker carriages and that unique easy-going flexible seating. At Wollongong station, bright red hibiscus belies the pretence of being anywhere else.

For a whole week the city of Wollongong was hosting the UCI World Road Cycling Championships, an annual event that is usually far more comfortable threading through venerable piazzas and over short, sharp cotes topped with a medieval church (although next year, Glasgow). Rarely have these elite athletes whizzed past a suburban Supercheap Auto under the ferocious defence of a newly parented magpie. Wout van aaaaaaagghhhht.

Still, they made a good fist of it and today was the turn of the women’s elite road race riders to run the gauntlet. After some scenic made-for-TV coastal ambling and a climb up into the verdant escarpment, the race route made multiple laps of a Wollongong city circuit. With each lap taking around half an hour there was just enough time to intersperse glimpses of a frenetic bundle of colour and energy with coffee and cake, ice cream, fish and chips.

When I broke for fish and chips the heavens well and truly opened again. Seeking protection to feast under a Norfolk Pine, I was astonished to observe a seagull warding off other numerous seagulls and leaving me in relative peace. In what kind of world does this happen? Certainly not back in Swanage.

With the last chip, the shower had passed and the sun came back out as the race reached a conclusion along the Champs du Marine Drive. Two hundred metres from the line, some people whooshed on by and that was that, for today. Back to the station, back on the train, back to Kiama, and back over an alarming mountain of more gushing rain in the pitch black. I felt my car handled it as well as an Alaphilippe, and was pleased to safely bed down to that classic Australian sound of rain on the tin roof of a Ford Territory.

I was camping in Kangaroo Valley, mainly because I couldn’t really find anywhere closer to stay at a reasonable price. This came with added benefits though, including Fitzroy Falls on the way down and a Sunday morning in which disappointing mist quickly lifted to leave glorious blue skies. Ringed by rugged rainforest mesa, its a landscape burgeoning with abundance, a valley carpeted with pasture as green as anything in Devon. It really is quite the enchanted spot.

It was a bit of a shame I couldn’t linger longer now that the weather was fine, but I had another train to catch. The road over the mountain to Berry was much better with light and sun, leading to the bonus of great coffee and pastries in Berry itself. Since I was last here a bypass for the Princes Highway has opened up but Berry itself doesn’t seem to have suffered. It is still, after all, within Sydney Weekender and mass wedding party range.

Unlike yesterday I skirted around Kiama and instead caught the train from Albion Park. This is the kind of area where Australia more closely resembles the United States: freeways and intersections, monotone warehouses, concrete car parks, fast food strips. For later I note a KFC and a servo with cheap petrol, something to help me up over the Illawarra Highway towards Canberra. For now, more frenetic two wheel action was in store.

Today was the jewel in the crown, the World Men’s Elite Road Race. I think the kilometres covered would take them back to Canberra if they wished, but instead more scenic coastal roads, lofty escarpment, and seemingly endless laps of that Wollongong circuit.

Thus I was able to position myself in various spots to watch them stream by, thinning and stretching with the revolution of every lap. Coffee and ice cream and fish and chips was harder to come by as I moved into the suburbs and it was with great envy that I passed parties on decks and could smell the aroma of barbecue lunches. For the most part I lingered in and around Ramah Avenue, a Ramsay Street of clichés beamed to the world. Seventies concrete brick homes, Utes in the drive, magpies warbling from atop bottle green gums. In between laps some hoons played cricket in the street.

Unlike Ramsay Street though Ramah Avenue possesses fifteen percent gradients, which made it a hotspot for crowds with cow bells, fancy dress dinosaurs, imitation devils. At times, cyclists would pass by slowly, though still – to my despair – at a speed I can just about muster on the flat. With each repetition the weariest fall back and you can sense their eyes roll at yet another climb. Dripping with sweat, thoughts perhaps turning to those snags on the barbecue and a cold one at number 52.

Eventually one of them pops clear. A frontrunner who can no longer be caught. A diminutive Belgian, a rising star. Remco, a racer who looks about 12 but acts in a way far more mature than many who should really know better. Real inspiration, real leadership, a long, long way from a Big, Big Dog. And let’s just hope I’m not too premature about that.

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Moving on

There is probably so much I have skipped. Top of mind: tranquility at Talland Bay, Dartmoor and chips, Bedruthan jackets and English wines, clubhouse iso, that really hip cafe on Mutley Plain, Mount Edgecumbe, Whitsand and the rest. More pasties in Looe (naturally), Tavistock ambles with coffee and walnut cake, blood tests, Tamerton Foliot creekside discoveries with Ernesettle reminisces, and just those sunny morning cuppas in the garden.

But time moves far more quickly than I can write and there comes a point (sat in a campground in Kangaroo Valley, NSW, for instance) where you simply have to draw a line under it all. Not to consign it to history but as something to live on in your mind and to seep into your heart, as opposed to a memorial of mere letters on a screen. Oh, also: London, crowded Northern Line wearing no mask, train delays to frigid Preston station, Ansdell walks with surprise sunshine and delicious Fairhaven ice cream. But I digress.

I stayed a long time in the United Kingdom, but not as long as it takes to appoint an even more diabolical Prime Minister. And that includes extra time, which was not so much a gift but a sad consequence of the turning of the world, the passage of life. Thank you for all the happy memories, memories that don’t need to be written here but live on at random moments, in places and patterns, in smells and sounds, or simply when a certain light shines through the trees.

Back in Kangaroo Valley, I could’ve had a beer this evening at the Friendly Inn (and with this stream of consciousness you may think this the case). But I didn’t. I had a takeaway pizza and thought I could wile away that black period before it was acceptable to go to bed by catching up with this blog. Occasionally I hear cheers in the distance from the pub, the eels are playing the dingoes or something in a semi-preliminary final or some such. I’ve been away too long.

The pub looked enticing, and far more enticing than where Dad and I ended up in Swanage. However, the first pub we went to was always going to be tough to beat. The Bridge Inn on the River Avon a little out of Amesbury, sparkling in Sunday afternoon sunshine. How good a cider tastes in such surroundings. Swiftly polished off to get away from that guy.

Having started here in June it was interesting to witness how two months had progressed. Upon the Pewsey Downs a landscape of golden grass, sweeping along ridges and hummocks and down into the Vale. A combine below creating a cloud of dust as it sets about its work under a searing sun. On the horizon, more dust, or is it a fire? And just around the corner, maybe Gundagai.

I guess these could be those much vaunted sunlit uplands but to extend the metaphor let me tell you they took a great deal of bashing through prickly, unruly, needless crap to reach. The Ordnance Survey is something great and British but even they cannot always steer us upon the right path (probably, I imagine, because they had their funding cut). The wrong kind of hedge fund.

I always like to have intimate encounters with the English countryside but this was taking it a little too far. A touch more sedentary (and bramble-free) were walks within the Wiltshire villages and towns. Salisbury, with its markets and bunting and majestic cathedral, admired the world over. And Bradford-on-Avon, melding that gracious, Brunel-era industrial heritage with wooded riverside walks and resident kingfishers.

The kingfishers have a following and you catch people lingering for a glance; some simply pausing with the kids on their way to the Co-op, others equipped with shiny lenses and tripods on their way to the Countryfile calendar competition. While the kingfishers remained hidden in town, teasing their audience, Dad and I made our way to Avoncliff, bought a cider each to cool down by the river, and enjoyed the accompaniment of several blurs of vivid blue darting from bank to bank. This is the way to bird.

They were hot days – another plume of continental airmass – and there was appeal in sedentary nature-watching. Like sitting on the sofa and being alerted to the presence of a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth. And another. And another. And, what, how many is that today? And eventually, even though you know it will be a pale imitation of the master’s work, sitting there waiting with your camera to capture this amazing little creature.

The heat didn’t quite last; in fact it inevitably disappeared when we went away to the Dorset coast for a few days. Standing ankle-deep in the water in Devon, I had a feeling I would see the sea again. And, of course, encounter the South West Coast Path.

We were practically straight out onto it, reaching Durlston Country Park on the southern side of Swanage. From here a jaunt along the south coast on a placid nothing kind of day – occasional haze interrupting a bluey-grey sky as small boats on the horizon inch westward toward Portland Bill. With its crumbling chalky cliffs and thicketed combes, the coast path here is a different beast from the western edge of Cornwall. But always, there is ocean.

We ended up walking a fair distance in the end, overlooking the rock formations at Dancing Ledge. These were heavily peopled by those having a ball: bathing, picnicking and, for the most part, engaging in adventure pursuits that require a wetsuit and fluorescent vest. Perhaps the vests aid discovery when they get lost in the brambles and gorse as they make their way up to the ridge away from the coast. Another foray through the rubbish to reach those uplands which, today, were not even sunlit.

We worked up appetite for an ice cream in Swanage and possibly the fish and chips that followed a little later. They were enjoyable enough beside the water, shared with hundreds of other people doing likewise. Yet despite this abundance there are not enough fish and chip eaters to go around to satisfy the voracious seagulls espying any remote opportunity to ruin a moment. Effectively, for protection, we were eating fish and chips from a bag and that somewhat diluted the ambience.

The ambience went further downhill in the only pub in town with seating. And then again the next morning thanks to some persistent rain. I mean I shouldn’t complain, we need the rain, but I will complain anyway. Why don’t you wait one more week when I am far, far away persistent rain? Still, um good weather for golf. If you can call it that.

Victorious on the first play-off ‘hole’ I went to celebrate with coffee and cake, and Dad was all too happy to tag along. Mine was some tiramisu concoction which I feel was born from baking an odd number of chocolate and coffee sponges and deciding the best way to use them up is to slather them with cream and dust with cocoa to entice passing Anglo-Australians on two month holidays who cherish the Britishness of escaping woes with a slice of cake. It was perfect.

Like the gigantic crumbs falling upon on my plate, the dazzling formations of Old Harry Rocks are deserving of attention. Proving almost as busy as the cake shop, a procession of visitors walk the fairly tame path to witness iconic chalk piles crumbling into the sea. On a cloudy, drizzly day, there is a welcome brightness to the rocks and a jollity in communal gathering, with some rather unique TikTok takes and selfie set ups.

Over the ridge from Swanage Bay, we were now in Studland, which is a rather alarming or invigorating prospect depending on whatever floats your boat. I had visions of Dad and I leaning wearily on the ‘Welcome to Studland’ sign in our sexy waterproofs, each sporting a large package. On our back. Unfortunately ladies it never materialised and you may be better off making the trek to Penistone instead.

Thankfully though, finally, some brightness materialised at the end of our walk, which was conveniently next to a pub. I can’t say it was the best ale but the setting was exemplary and ambience was back on the way up. So much so that the sun came out, Dad went into the water, and I watched on at these Englanders embracing chilly water and a green algae fringe.

It felt more like summer holidays again. An alfresco pizza as the sun sets over Swanage and a morning breakfast bap as it heads up into the sky again. There was, of course, a tinge of Australia in this beachside kind of morning. Something I was all too quick to use as an excuse as to why I wouldn’t take a loyalty card for more awful machine-generated coffee in an otherwise lovely spot. Sorry mate, I’ll be in Australia next week.

Indeed time, extra time, was drawing to a close. Swanage was in the rear view mirror, as was Corfe Castle, as was Dorset and Devon and Cornwall. A Prime Minister was still not appointed but they were now down to two. The sun shone again and there were a few days remaining to walk among golden hay-bales, eat another tub of clotted cream, be bombarded by Hummingbird hawk-moths and say farewells. It was time to move on but with farewells that are never really final. For you take with you all the people, places, pasties and they add up to constitute your very being and shape every step forward you take. Whether that is to a cake shop, a mountain top or sat in a glade in the forest, soaking in sun-dappled light.

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We need to talk about Devon

Devon. It feels far from ambrosial when hunting for chicken wings among the half-empty shelves of Lidl on Union Street. Outside, cars circle a small concrete plot as people embark on their quest to endure the least amount of walking possible. Further along the street, once grand facades appear sullen and decrepit, run down by time and indifference. Only pigeons call them home, foraging on the pickings of kebab spilling out like the desperation and menace exiting shady clubs in those dark, seedy hours.

Pan out from Union Street, across the shanty town of cash-in-hand workshops and inevitable vape shops and things will begin to change. Urban renewal they may call it or – worse – gentrification, as if in some way what had gone before was base and unworthy. Waterside apartments in Millbay, loft conversions in Stonehouse, renovated terraces in West Hoe. Far from the wages of a labourer or carer or teacher. But at least they can still afford a bag of chips and a round of crazy golf at West Hoe Park.

And Plymouth Hoe itself acts as a great leveller, a place where anyone can stroll, picnic, kick a ball, or gather in a cluster with several other yoof and create tiktoks. Old ladies may wild swim and Vodka Dave may dance and most people can get a coffee of bitter tears that may mercifully be saved with cake. The sun may shine and, sat beside the glistening water of Plymouth Sound, one may wonder if anything could really be that much finer. Especially when visible in the distance pockets of ambrosia await.

Immediately out of the city limits a web of narrow lanes burrow through trees and hedgerows to places like Heybrook Bay, Bovisand, Down Thomas and Wembury. Wembury is by far the largest of the lot, a virtual suburb of Plymouth renowned for its untamed beach and extortionate parking. Many Plymothians make the trip here but only tight arses like me park up in the village, content to embrace a longer, circular walk promising a different perspective.

I was heading past garden allotments and lone cottages once more towards the River Yealm. This is a river whose waters I have so many times witnessed from the other side. The side with lofty views atop the summit of Revelstoke Drive. The side with densely packed woodland cascading down to sea level. The side with a narrow lane leading to the charms of Noss Mayo and its creekside inns.

Hello from the other side. A similar world of bobbing boats and shingle shores, of dense thickets and a scattering of homes, sitting as neatly into the landscape as they do in my mind when it turns to an idyllic life of fantasy. You could summon a ferry out of nowhere to cross to the pub, but I’ll leave that for another time. And taste the caustic coffee beside Wembury Beach instead.

Not that the Ship Inn was to be bypassed altogether, an addendum for a sunny afternoon in a summer of sunny afternoons. A Friday beer o’clock escape, when you can briefly picture this as your local. Tribute and a pack of pork scratchings among the minions and the millionaires. All the time, the tide imperceptibly creeping in to imperil the cars of those from out of town.

When it comes to millionaires, you’d be hard pressed to encounter a denser population than on the streets of Salcombe. Well, not the streets per se but the grand designs surrounded by moats of lush exotics overlooking sparkling bays. And if not found on wooden deckchairs in the garden absorbed in the Daily Mail, the likelihood is of frequent sightings upon those opal waters below, sweater and chinos all aboard the MV Smug.

With some world-beating inflation in the UK, I could just about afford a millionaires shortbread from M&S. However I opted instead for a bag of Monster Munch left over from some far off Tesco meal deal. Still, with those pickled onion morsels come million dollar views, situated around the corner and down towards Soar Mill Cove. The coastline here is about as dramatic as it gets in South Devon, all ups and downs and ups again. The cove – in its sheltered enclave with raggedy rocky outcrops and see-through waters – a kind of mini Kynance. Only without the million dollar parking fees.

There are, of course, other priceless coves down this way. Conjuring the prospect of Friday night dinner down by the sea, I persuaded someone else to drive down the A379 for a change (thanks Steve). This came with the omnipresent soundtrack of my niece, Brooke, but at least afforded me the chance to be drawn into views of beautiful countryside, stone bridges, tunnels of trees and the wilds of upland Dartmoor in the distance.

We all disembarked at Hope Cove which seems caught somewhere between a rustic fishing village of lobster pots and an upmarket resort of eco-pods. For a while you can play at millionaire here too, taking a perch for some refreshment overlooking the bay. And the coast path is always free. Dinner, however, seems another prospect, with the few places around busy and focusing on menus of the hand-caught goujon of Start Bay Sea Bass served with a melange of Rosemary-flecked Kipfler potatoes and wild lemon-infused baby samphire variety. A pizza on the beach or something would’ve been nice.

So, feeling increasingly hangry, we shifted a few miles up the road to the biggest town around – Kingsbridge. To emphasise its size, Kingsbridge boasts a Tesco and a Morrisons, plus several pubs, restaurants and takeaways. We practically did a tour of them all, before ending back at the first place we saw next to the car park. Of course. But this was pretty close to the town square and quay, and we sat outside alongside summer holiday vibes and terrific weather. The only downer was the early closure of the Salcombe Dairy Ice Cream booth. Off home to count their millions.

I did eventually manage to ingest some Salcombe Dairy at a predictably inflationary price. It came as icing on top of a final Devon cake of a day. A concoction that is so wonderful and blessed but tinged with a background air of melancholy that comes with imminent farewell. For once, the goal wasn’t really to gorge on cake, just the icing on top.

There were cakey temptations at Heron Valley Cider Farm, where it was too early for a cider but perfectly suitable for a coffee. Signs that I had been here for two months were starting to show in the agreeableness of the coffee, an agreeableness that was only usurped by the luscious setting. What is it again? Green, green grass, blue, blue sky? Thank you Heart, as continually always two months on.

Now, normally finding myself with Mum in such a location around eleven o’clock in the morning I would feel obliged to support local business by purchasing one of the many slices and treats arranged on the counter. Mum would murmur things like “oh I probably shouldn’t” and then we’d look at each other with a knowing glance that I would quickly succumb. “Oh sod it, I’m on holiday” I would say, mildly aware that it’s not the best idea when it’s a two month holiday.

Yet today, of all days, I was steadfast. A coffee was enough. But before I pat myself on the back too much, it’s only because lunch was a mere matter of miles down the road.

Farm shops can be funny affairs. In the golden days before Google you would turn up never quite sure whether you’d encounter a smorgasbord of local delights or a few cartons of mismatched eggs next to a pile of withered green beans. Nowadays, the more savvy enterprises promote their wares with funky Instagram stories and filtered Facebook posts.

So I knew beforehand that as well as eggs and green beans and no doubt meat, Aune Valley Meat, just outside of Loddiswell, advertised a hog roast bap in their Valley View Café. I would usually bemoan the strict ordering times and a lengthy wait but this just served to amplify pangs of hunger to the point of drool. And when the food eventually arrives upon its wooden board (oh dear), salivation soon becomes salvation.

Like Beaufort in Beaufort and Pizza in a Piazza, that additional ten percent elevating the taste all comes from the terroir. Those lush, bounteous hills of the South Hams that – thankfully – are not dotted with potential future hams. At least not from our vantage. The Devon flag flutters, the tractors make hay, the tourist caravans tentatively inch past towards their constricted destiny.

Moving south, the terroir of the sea tends to induce thoughts of fish and chips and ice cream. Given the scale of lunch, the fish and chips are quickly ruled out, but perhaps there can be an ice cream in the offing. First, some recovery on the beach at Thurlestone, where crystal waters once again tempt with Caribbean vibes. Caribbean in colour only.

Unwilling to freeze in the ocean for long, I hotfoot it along the coast path. That enduring friend who I shall miss as much as anything. It takes me past Thurlestone Golf Course, adding the hazard of wayward balls to the potential to stumble off a hundred foot cliffs. Looking west, I see the distinctive mount of Burgh Island and, further still, the entrance into Plymouth Sound. Rame Head, Cornwall sticks out beyond. But let us not speak of Cornwall here.

In the other Devon direction lies Hope Cove, Bolt Tail and then Salcombe. I discover their dairy ice cream has made it this way, just along from Thurlestone at South Milton Sands. But its arrival is only in tubs and only in the most preposterous National Trust café I have ever come across. For here, not scones and jam nor crisps and sandwiches. But alcoholic drinks and a DJ. This is what happens when Boris Johnson becomes PM, I tell you. Not that he was actually doing much at the time, but nobody seemed to notice.

Boris and Carrie might have been there as the tunes began to bang and the bouncers evicted non-patrons from the wooden tables outside. It seemed that kind of place. Locals need not apply, except between the months of September and May. Just stick to the farms, thank you very much.

The hog roast roll at Valley View Farm felt a long way from a chicken wing hunt in the heart of Union Street. But wondrously they really aren’t so far apart. And that is probably why the people of Plymouth – unbeknownst to many of them – find themselves in one of the most fortunate locations in the UK.

I thought I was done with Devon with that final day out, but an uplifting Saturday morning and a spare hour encouraged me to see the sea here one more time. I whizzed through Plymstock and around Staddon Heights to Bovisand. Here, warm sunshine beamed down upon a grassy bank as I lingered over another agreeable coffee. A couple of small, sheltered coves welcomed a handful of bathers and boarders who were welcoming the weekend. Life was as sweet as Ambrosia Devon Custard.

It felt like we were here in a forever summer and none of us wanted it to end. Could not every morning be as agreeable as this? Can we not just press pause and dwell in this unreal reality? But time and tide move on, seasons shift, people come and people go. And I had to get back to Plymouth one last time to barbecue those bloody chicken wings.

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Lizard bites

The it’s too hot brigade have been out in force lately. The worrying thing is they are probably right. More worryingly, I have caught myself occasionally joining them. This, along with an increasing tolerance of British coffee and quietly muttered acceptance of noisy people in the quiet carriage, suggests I am getting more comfortable on these shores. Apart from when it is too hot of course.

The heat would be more agreeable if Britain boasted fine sandy bays and crystal clear coves, a setting for languid summer holidays and Mediterranean vibes. Perhaps with some tapas, gelato and meze thrown in. Let me introduce you, then, to The Lizard.

Down in far west Cornwall, The Lizard is an area where the southernmost chunk of mainland Britain tapers into the ocean. With water on both sides there is a veritable array of beaches and bays, harbours and headlands to choose from. And it is on its western shore, facing the Atlantic as it feeds into Mounts Bay, where some of the finest sights and sands can be found.

The very first morning of a week-long family holiday provides some pinch yourself moments at Poldhu Cove. I must confess, like so many other annoying tourists, it was Instagram that thrust Poldhu into my consciousness. What entranced me were the golden sands, blue waters and white swirls of cream decorated with all sorts of gooeyness atop a hot chocolate. The excellent Poldhu Beach Café has a slight Aussie vibe perched upon the sand, delivering decent coffee, brownies and down to earth chit-chat. It felt very much peak dream home.

Either side of the cove the outlook becomes even more idyllic as the transparency of the water shines, magnifying the outline of rocky reefs and diffusing the shadows of colourful paddle boards upon the seabed. On shore, the cliffs rise, coated in a swathe of still-green grass and wildflowers flourishing under the sun. The coastline tracks toward the horizon on either side, encasing a welcoming expanse of Cornish perfection. It felt very much peak dream home.

Beyond the northern headland to Poldhu, the next bay along – Church Cove – has a more old school air. Grittier sands, seaweed, emboldened National Trust parking attendants. The presence of the old church wedged between rock and sea oozes tradition and heritage. Lichen-infused gravestones suggest at whole generations of fisherfolk and farmers of centuries past, whose ancestors probably still plough their fields and rent their shepherd’s huts today. The surrounding greens of Mullion Golf Club nestle perfectly, as if they have sat in this landscape forever.

Also fitting in, The National Trust run a small kiosk at Church Cove. Naturally. A pleasant enough mini-menu of Bakewell slices, cheese and onion crisps and ham salad sandwiches. But when you know what is just around the next corner, a short up and down across coast path heaven, then why linger. Especially when you have a partner in crime.

I found myself eating alone overlooking Praa Sands but still wasn’t complaining. While some rosy-hued patrons were already on the booze Magaloof style, I contented myself with coffee and a rocky road. Not Poldhu quality but you could have anything here on a day like today and still feel you had won the lottery. Eat in the view, drink up the ambience.

Praa Sands is a long golden bay, increasingly marvellous as the tide rolls out. Forget the Med, think Australia. Near the car parks, caravan parks, shops and cafes it could be a bit of a Bondi on Boxing Day. But the farther you move away, the closer you come to a NSW south coast style stretch of empty beach.

It’s quite a trek from west to east, but with sand between toes and tepid clear waters lapping at them, the footsteps pass with ease. Eventually Praa Sands can go no further, coming against Rinsey Head, over which the South West Coast Path once more meanders. The scenery becomes a more classic Cornwall, capped off by the archetypal abandoned tin mine. Wheal Prosper. We certainly will.

And confirming that, despite best efforts, this is not really the Med or Australia, how about a pasty back on the beach? Proving this is 100% pure Kernow.

Like pasties, I doubt you would find a bag of pork scratchings on a tapas menu, salty fatty fodder to accompany a pint of St. Austell Tribute. Still, I can easily envisage pints and pork products down on the Costa del Sol. Gammons eating bacon with tea and Estrella.

We were snacking in a pub garden in Mullion, a prelude to ending the day down in Mullion Cove. The small cobbled harbour here almost seems an impossibility. Wedged into the towering coastline, it feels like a tiny fissure in an almighty, unyielding wall. Sanctuary from violent winter storms might only be cursory, sparing. Yet here the harbour still stands, and to stand here is to feel on the very precipice.

Somehow there is a way up from the nook of the harbour, via another goat track section of the coast path. It’s open country, ideal for rabbits and birds of prey eating rabbits and walkers just casually wandering and falling down an unseen ravine. Compared to those fine sandy beaches elsewhere the ocean in front is a less inviting prospect, though arguably more beguiling. A swirling canvas captivating and luring smugglers and pirates and hardy fisherman’s friends of yesteryear.

Illuminating it all, the reddening sun drifts towards a watery horizon, setting closer to ten o’clock in this incredible summer. Glazing the sea and the land and the sky. And kissing our faces a shade of gammon.

And so, the final Lizard bite (part I) culminates in the perfect encapsulation of everything that has gone before: Kynance Cove, with bonus half a pasty.

In recent years, Kynance has become prey to a combination of Poldark Disease and Instagramitis, developing mythical, bucket-list status. All too frequently I am presented with short video clips set to jaunty music showing half-naked people frolicking in crystal waters, often with the caption “CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS IS ENGLAND!!!!!!”. As tedious as these become after constant repetition, they have a point. Kynance is an undoubted jewel in a very lavish crown.

The good news is that despite a warm sunny day in July propelling many vehicles to the National Trust car park, the scale of Kynance Cove is sufficient to maintain a sense of space and serenity. This is especially the case with the tide on its way out, revealing wider stretches of sand, secret nooks and unexpected crannies. In spite of everything anyone can find their own little wonderful spot of paradise.

Still, the kids built a fortress of sandcastles on the beach to keep wandering Scousers at bay, encircling our clan from marauding invaders and video influencers. Not that I sat within it for long spells, keen to just potter up and down and in and out and via the NT café for a mediocre coffee and slice of carrot cake.

Views from up high once again highlight the drama and spectacle of nature, as huge lumps of rock appear as they have been thrown haphazardly into translucent waters and edged with golden sand. The people who once seemed many and varied at sea level morph into colourful speckles, dots on a more expansive landscape. But, with a bit of zoom, that family fortress is still visible.

As I descended to sea level to join them, still a bit peckish, I was delighted to find I had been gifted half a pasty. Originating from the locally ubiquitous Ann’s Pasties, it must have been a product of Kynance proportions for there remained a substantial lunch in front of me. Gorgeous, and at least it wasn’t too hot.

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Poppies and daisies

Well that was a first. I literally spat out my coffee. In front of bemused patrons of the National Trust. It is not the standard one expects within the National Trust, but it was bloody hot. I think I forgot how it is acceptable here to ruin coffee by ensuring it has similar properties to molten steel. And this was a sizeable gulp whose safest pathway was back out onto the grass.

On the plus side, the cake at Lanhydrock eased the palate and I was able to wash it down with sips of coffee after 15 minutes. Plus there could always be something cooler and soothing to come later on.

Unwilling to invest substantial capital to enter the property at Lanhydrock, the cafe was a mere pit stop on the way to the coast of North Cornwall. It was a dispiritingly cloudy, drizzly kind of drive but one in which I felt a little on autopilot: over the bridge, Trago, the A30 and past the holiday homes littering the outskirts of Newquay.

Mum and I were heading to West Pentire, where social media had amply promoted the annual appearance of poppies. Clumps of poppies. Swathes of poppies. Whole fields full of poppies. Enough poppies for influencers the world over. So many, that you can easily find your own patch.

This spectacle for once diverts attention from some classic Cornish scenery. On one side, the golden sands of Polly Joke Beach call out to those willing to carry deckchairs and bodyboards, while the massive expanse of the Gannel estuary with the tide out magnifies Crantock Beach a hundred times over.

Such is the scale, it takes a fair few minutes to drive to the car park for Crantock, run by our good friends at The National Trust. I hope I haven’t been blacklisted already for my earlier misdemeanours, but they seem happy enough to take our two quid for an hour. It is an hour to eat some packed lunch on a sand dune and cram in a walk to the fringe of the Atlantic. In the shallows it feels fairly warm but I do not linger any longer than the sole lifesaver escaping the creep of the returning tide in his four by four.

Being a National Trust bad boy I think I exceeded the parking by four minutes but I blame it on the sand-shaking and shoe-shuffling. Sensible footwear for the journey back to Plymouth. Yet those shoes took us on a little diversion, via a charming farmhouse in Callestick, a spot where they happen to churn out mountains of ice cream. Naughty shoes. Least I didn’t spit any of this out.

Foodstuffs continued to be on the mind during other forays into Cornwall. This included throughout a three day hike along the South West Coast Path – much more of which can be digested in another post here. In brief: fish and chips, ice cream, cider, cream tea, chips, ham sandwich, double decker, crisps and beer, croissants and celebratory pasty. With some walking.

And then there was Looe. Pasty? Cream Tea? Pasty? Cream Tea? Both? For all my bravado beforehand I couldn’t do both on the same day, so instead visited Looe twice. Once to see Sarah and her pasty paradise, the other to revisit Daisies which, despite being under new ownership, still served a fine cream tea (8/10, needs a little work to reach previous heights, but extra points for cream top up).

Though it has good foodstuffs and is convenient I am getting a bit over Looe. It must be all those visits for pasties and cream teas and occasional fudge. Countless laps of the car park, voracious seagulls, tacky gift shops, stinky low tide and shuffling grockles. It may well initially charm, and does always nourish, but there are better places I might be.

So after devouring the last cream tea on an overcast day, it was straight back to the car park to gift a space to a happy Mercedes. Leaving Looe to seek a quieter, mellow kind of place. Discovered not so far away at Talland Bay, where the natural delights of the coast meet tractor-friendly dreams.

Espying there a building sat upon the cove. A scene for another day, another year. A café by the water.

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Half a world away

Until recently, the last time I witnessed the ocean it was obediently marching towards the stoic cliff line of North Cornwall. A showery, blustery day unsurprising in early December, as fickle and mean-spirited as the lack of warming jacket potatoes and the distribution of parking tickets. Utterly glorious but only in fleeting spells between disenchantment.

It’s not that I haven’t wanted to see the sea again. But fate and circumstance have been unpredictable allies, regularly conspiring to deliver huge volumes of rain along eastern Australia, more often than not over the course of a whole weekend. Floods, landslips, surges, maelstrom. The usual 2022 kind of stuff really.

Canberra, naturally, has been a little more protected from the onslaught, feasting its way through annual festivities towards the ambience of autumn. But there’s only so many gum trees and mountain vistas and cafes on bike rides and lake reflections one can digest before yearning for a saltier breeze. Waiting, watching, hoping for a porthole.

And finally there is a Sunday in April. A Sunday following several more days of heavy rain but a window nonetheless. A Sunday when I hotfooted it east with haste, bypassing the regulation coffee stop in Braidwood so that I could enjoy one instead on the sand. From Mossy Point down to Broulee. Regulation muffin making for a vision realised.

Broulee is always a good bet, boasting a selection of beaches and bays, aforementioned coffee (and muffin), and a diverting walk around its not quite island. Here it’s not all fine white sand and azure water, but slabs of rock, stunted scrub and seaweed lending a dose of unkempt nature to proceedings.

Indeed, with the generous gift of La Niña there is plenty of seaweed to mar those paradisiacal sands, the water a distinctly browner shade than normal from all the run off. But under blue skies today, who’s complaining?

With a spot of dawdling and reading and milling around to give the muffin at least some time to digest, I headed onto Moruya to source some fish and chips for lunch. Or fish cocktails and a potato scallop to be precise. The cocktails – all crunch outside and softness within – are to be commended, the scallop – all undercooked insipidness – to be fed to the gulls.

Still, the food was more than enough to propel me towards a post lunch lull and I had visions of fading in and out of consciousness on a sheltered bay somewhere nearby. On name alone, Lilli Pilli Beach tempted me towards it and I settled on the sand with hope, only to be distracted by a cool, funnelling breeze and pooey wafts from a stagnant creek. This motivated me to move and explore among the wonderful spotted gums above the bay.

Trying again for a final dose of utopia I pulled off the road at McKenzies Beach. This was more like it: no smells, no wind, and the rhythmic throb of surf as it meets the crescent of fine, south coast sand. And while there was no nap to be had, I sat contentedly, sun on back, reading about some lady cycling around France eating cake. There is no shame to have an escape within an escape, especially when it involves patisserie.

Back in the very present, I finished a chapter atop the Col de Joux Plane and cast imprints of my feet in the sand. Greeting the ocean and wading ankle deep. Thinking the next time they touch the sea, they may well be half a world away.

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Still well

Freedom. We hear much about its supposed decline. Personally, I’d quite appreciate the freedom not to be exposed to a bunch of conspiracy nutjobs freely protesting about their lack of freedom and flaunting their undeniable individuality through exemplary selfishness. The freedom not to have my head done in.

Sometimes you just want to say “oh f*ck off” and sometimes I do just that when a news story about freedumb fighters forcing cancellation of a charity book fair or abusing a masked-up pensioner or accosting a sixteen year old in a supermarket trying to support the safety of the community gets an airing on the radio. Seriously fuck right off you fucking freeloading fuckwits. Excuse the language but free speech and all that yeah.

At other times it would be nice just to get away from it all, lose radio reception, lose phone signal, lose the presence of moronic people. A solace fairly easily achieved on a comfortable drive down to Kosciuszko National Park and then via your own two feet. Nature, fresh air, rugged wilderness, freedom from freedom.

On the pursuit of freedom I’ve been finding appeal in the idea of multi-day walks of late (or bike rides). Admittedly most of that appeal gravitates towards the South West Coast Path or the Hadrian’s Wall Path or the Cleveland Way or any other number of routes traversed by Portillo, Humble, Green, Reeve, Robinson et al. and delivered to me via the SBS evening schedule. The kind of walk where you can stop after a mile for tea and cake, pushing on for a lunchtime pasty before reaching a quaint coastal village for a pint, feed and cosy room for the night.

Thanks largely to its wildness and locking up of much of the land, such walking experiences are harder to find in Australia. Instead, multi-day hikes are more intrepid affairs requiring the portage of camping gear and emergency beacons and snake bite kits. I would probably quite like these too, if I had a Sherpa. Many people head into Kosciuszko to do as much, and the cars parked at the trail head in Guthega on a Friday indicate some are out there now.

I too park my car up to join the Illawong Walk, slightly anxious about leaving my new second-hand toy overnight. My backpack too is full, but compact in size. Mostly it contains a change of clothes and extra layers and, of course, a flask of tea and accompanying treat from a Jindabyne bakery. Passing the upper stretches of Guthega Dam, through herbaceous meadows and spiky wildflowers, it doesn’t take long to reach the suspension bridge across the Snowy River. An opportune spot for tea and cake already.

I had first come here almost a year to the day. Back then it was warmer and glowing, a delightful surprise full of sunshine, vanilla-honey aromas and Sound of Music earworms*. At the bridge I noticed a new track under construction. Destined for Charlotte Pass. And one year later it is clear. It is free. It leads – sort of – to a hotel.

And so the walk continues to follow the Snowy as it meanders through open valleys and rising hills ever nearer to its source. While at times the vistas are expansive, at others the experience feels enclosed, contained, inching through tunnels of achingly beautiful and impossibly smooth snow gum. Alpine flowers form in clusters of white and yellow and pink. From near and far, the crystal waters of the river alternate between wide, placid pools and frenetic ribbons of white.

The walking is good and never especially steep, with much of the route marked by a metal walkway elevated from the ground to protect the rare and fragile environment underneath. Its newness is clear and sometimes you feel as if you are the first to tread its course. There are other people testing it out, but even these are few and far between.

Closer to Charlotte Pass people become a more common occurrence as the trail intersects with the Main Range circuit. More familiar views open up, from the stepping stones across the river to the outline of the trail weaving upwards towards Blue Lake and Mount Carruthers. One of these rounded humps is Mount Kosciuszko itself, so indistinct and underwhelming as the nation’s highest summit. But this is still a lumpy topography, something I am reminded of once again in that arduous push up to the parking area at Charlotte Pass.

Charlotte Pass village is nothing more than a cluster of ski lodges and cabins which are no doubt a lot more abuzz in winter. It’s another kilometre or two down the road, a fairly uninspiring drag that will be worse in the morning when walking in reverse. At the road junction down to the village a truck displays a massive red billboard promoting food, drinks and coffee. The one and only thing open.

This is the Stillwell Hotel and it also has beds for the night. It becomes clear pretty quickly that I am the only guest. I find it strange and sad that these places are so dead in summer, given the access to many walking routes and biking opportunities and extreme running and perhaps some fishing and possibly just a lovely picnic amongst the wildflowers. Still, at least there is something open (this is an improvement on past years) and there is food and drink being served. For me, a pizza overburdened with cheese will hit the mark, and provide catering for lunch tomorrow.

I theorised I could make this a proper multi-day walk by heading to Thredbo the next day, stopping over at another inn for the night. But there wasn’t much room, Thredbo now the mountain biking mecca and hosting some x-games rad-fest over the weekend. Instead, my hiking adventure merely involved a walk back to the car along the same route. Still, there are new perspectives to be had from a different angle.

Not that I could see the next morning, negotiating the incessant upward angle to the end of the road high in the clouds. Mist and drizzle swept into the valley, adding to the bleakness of Charlotte Pass village and its Stephen King feels. I decked myself out in every layer I owned, hood pulled up and wedged tight by a hat. A few cars passed as I lumbered my way toward the parking area, and I wondered if they thought I was some intrepid adventurer and / or serial killer.

Many, many cars are parked here and it is interesting to see how many days they have booked to be in the national park. Expiry dates on windscreens provide entertainment in the mist and you wonder how those people with three days left are going out in the wild. Other people are just here for the day, and a few gaggles embark optimistically for the lofty summits somewhere out there.

They should be fine. As I re-join the trail back to Guthega the clouds are starting to break up and passing glimpses of hillside and snow-dotted summit provide hope. The dour, swirling air seems to accentuate the beauty of the snow gums and the fragrant shrubs and the pin pricks of delicate flowers scattered among them. Small spider webs are bejewelled by the rain. The river sounds closer and reassuring, a clarion call to guide through the grey.

With a gradual descent the clouds rise and there are pockets of blue sky ahead. A series of summits are illuminated bright, bare hills erupting in shattered outcrops of rock. There is a sense of Dartmoor at times, and in other places a sense of Wales. But no refreshments in a cosy teashop a mile away.

Instead I have my flask and a big bar of KitKat, though it took some time to locate a suitable rock to sit on for morning tea. Further on, past the suspension bridge and close to the car, I finish up the pizza. By now, there are many more people setting out on a Saturday, lugging hefty backpacks with rolls of canvas and sleeping bags and kitchen utensils. Seeking their own freedom.

I am unsure why the final half a kilometre of a long walk always involves a ridiculous uphill drag. I probably could have parked closer. But I am pleased to see my car there, and pleased to see that it opens and starts. Now I am free to drive and free to stop in Jindabyne again and free to fill up with the very opposite of free petrol. Freely cruising up the Monaro and back to my home in Canberra, free of vaccine mandates and usually free of morons. Until they arrive from elsewhere. Both sitting in the nation’s parliament and camping at Exhibition Park. Strangely doing, pretty much, whatever they like.

* current earworm: Hasselhoff. Freedom. Oh, you too?

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The 0832 to Tumbarumba

Trains and schedules go together like trains and – well – Michael Portillo. Sometimes these schedules are fastidious affairs as in Switzerland, while at other times they are indicative aspirations, such as upon the platform of St. Budeaux Ferry Road. The problem with fastidiousness is the absolute carnage when it all goes wrong, like that time when a few trains into Geneva were running ten minutes late. You could see the terror in the faces of panicked locals as they reached for their mobiles to share the drama with loved ones and remediate the knock on effects of being late for an overpriced dinner. Quelle horreur!

When rail lines have faded into obscurity and decades of bureaucracy and nimbyism have finally been overcome to transform them into a gentle thoroughfare for people power, you wouldn’t think schedules really matter. They certainly don’t appear on the jauntily repainted railway sheds and hastily assembled flower beds signifying the start of the line. But schedules matter on a rail trail, because you really need to time that break for morning coffee and cake.

This is why, on a sunny Sunday morning in January, I embarked on the Tumbarumba to Rosewood Rail Trail by going from Rosewood to Tumbarumba. Or to be more precise, Rosewood to Tumbarumba Bakery, the only cake stop in town. Twenty one and a half kilometres to burn a few calories, work up a hunger, and hopefully enjoy some pleasant pedalling as the countryside passes by.

It is astonishing to think this is the only rail trail in New South Wales. While the state once again proclaims its own exceptionalism in leading Australia out of the COVID-19 pandemic (by ensuring everyone gets infected and supports the economic activity of Chemist Warehouse), it is a laggard in the rail trail stakes. Compared with the mighty 145km Brisbane Valley Rail Trail, this effort is a wee path. But what it loses in scale, it makes up for in quality.

I’d say the route is comprised of three parts, though given I am doing the return journey make that six. From Rosewood, the going is easy, fuelled by that initial excitement which makes life on a bike feel good. Rolling hills that could have been transplanted from Devon snuggly descend to flat pasture. Horses and cows and sheep and tractors can all be sighted along the way. Accompanying the trail, the meander of Mannus Creek sparkles in the early morning sun and all of this is undeniably bucolic.

Eventually the trail crosses over Mannus Creek and the landscape opens up considerably. Already warm, I pause in the shadow under the bridge to feast on an orange. Surely this is a fruit that tastes one hundred times better as an accompaniment to exercise. Those half time oranges sure do make sense. But there’s another fruit appearing upon the horizon, with rows of grapevines cloaking the curves of a more distant range of hills.

The going is more exposed now and the incline seems – though imperceptible to the naked eye – more wearying. While the grapes never do quite make it down to the trail there is a blueberry farm on the other side promoting goods for sale. But even this is a little detour and I decide the sound of a gunshot from that general vicinity is enough to motivate continued pedalling. With little on offer between Rosewood and Tumbarumba, I do think there is a missed opportunity here: a pop up stall with fresh blueberries and chilled champagne.

Along the final stretch into Tumbarumba I could use some effervescence. It is uphill all the way, though uphill in that long, circuitous drag of an old rail line manner. But pleasingly it is also a bit more wooded and the passing shade and scent of eucalypts is welcome. You also start to come across more signs of humanity – walkers, people tending to chooks in a smallholding, the sounds and smells of timber being processed.

The trail terminates on the edge of town, high above the shops. So while the plunge down to the high street is most welcome, this – for me – is also of concern for the return. I can see some walking in my future. But in the present it is 10:24, perfectly on schedule to buy a coffee and apple turnover from the bakery. Oh and a real thing Coke and another cheap one dollar slice for the road.

There wasn’t really much to Tumbarumba but I was pleased to find a shady bench in a shady park with shady conveniences. It is the largest town around but that really isn’t saying too much. Still, it seemed amiable and well-kept and it wouldn’t be a bad place to linger longer. But of course I had a schedule to keep: the 11:17 to Rosewood.

Naturally the return was the inverse of everything that has gone before, though with a different angle it is amazing what else you can see. Best of all was the instant downhill where I really didn’t have to expend one kilojoule of fresh cream for five or six kilometres. After that, the earlier enthusiasm drains under a midday sun, and you start to develop a hatred of the e-bikers out for a jolly. My bike seems heavier, the chain rougher, the gears more grinding. Meanwhile my right knee creaks and my butt definitely feels more tender.

I was pleased for a shady rest spot to finish off my performance enhancing Coke at Wolseley Park Station. This was one of several stations that sprouted up to service the local farms, helping to foster small communities with a post office and village school and a dairy and a mechanics institute. If only those mechanics were on hand today to fine tune my derailleur. Still, at least the cows were still about, making some dubious noises. With five kilometres left, my mind turned to lunch.

The steak sandwich at Gone Barny in Rosewood was everything I had dreamed of and more. The more being the side of delicious, deep fried chips. I think, with my extras, this was one of the most expensive items on the menu, at a mere $15. It won’t win Michelin Stars (though that Michelin Man does look partial to a few chips), but as good, honest, tasty food goes, this was an outright winner.

Did I earn this feast after 43 kilometres, a large coffee, a larger apple turnover, a full-on coke, an orange and a few Vegemite Shapes? Oh I doubt it, but the whole point of doing these rail trails is to support these small regional towns, right? Gone Barny is a case in point. Now I leave full, feeling accomplished. Ready to schedule the next one.

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Under the shadows

And so, that year that everyone was so looking forward to when it commenced draws to a close. If the sequels to 2020 continue to pan out like the Police Academy series then we are all in for a very unamusing time. Unless you’re really into these boorish characters, crass jokes and ridiculous plotlines.

Despite its ups and downs, I was surprised to be able to find myself for a couple of weeks at the latter part of 2021 in the United Kingdom. So thank you lax borders and frequent flyer points and negative lateral flow tests and annual leave build up and, most of all, thank you science. It was a bonus trip, taken with a wariness that things could so easily change again and again.

It was amazing and I would do it all over again. This, despite the shadow of coronavirus always lurking in the background, sometimes coming to the fore. At times – such as high upon a clifftop overlooking the Atlantic, roaring with laughter during an early Christmas gathering, scouring verdant countryside for lens hoods – the pandemic disappeared altogether. At others – shopping for cards in an almighty hurry, shoving swabs up my nose, double-masking when others breathe “freedom” – it was all that was going on.

The journey back to Australia is never really a good one and pandemic travel adds an extra layer of crap. Which is exactly what was lathered all over my hands from a Great Western Railway dispenser at Plymouth station. Awaiting a train to Exeter masks were – mostly – back in fashion but no-one was rocking the dual surgical-cloth combo quite like me.

Eschewing my reserved seat for a quieter clump further down the carriage, it was a peaceful journey twisting through the ambrosia of South Devon. Along the Teign the low winter sun inched into the sky and flickered golden upon the caps of gentle waves as we wound towards Dawlish. A silhouette upon the beach swiftly passed by and I felt a yearning to swap places.

At Exeter a breath of fresh air before trundling on through a litany of country villages and towns straight out of Wessex – Whimple, Sherborne, Templecombe, Tisbury, and then finally Salisbury. For a meeting with Dad, a bakery and – yes – a PCR test.

At £99 (AU$200) I was expecting a gold plated swab and free lollipop, not a tiny pharmacy offering a ten second poke up the nose. Oh well, hopefully it will get me on a plane to Australia within the mandatory 72 hours. Hopefully.

I stayed with Dad and Sonia for a couple of days, happily partaking in Tartiflette traditions and Saturday night quiz shows. The main activity was a delightful Wiltshire walk around the Vale of Pewsey, that ultimate pre-departure injection of countryside England, of green and pleasant, of great outdoors. Of surprising blue skies masking a chill winter wind.

Much of the route took us along the top of a characteristic chalk down, plunging curvaceously into rich, bounteous farming country. Beyond far-reaching vistas over loveliness, memorable features included a white horse, old burial mounds, brambles, crawling through gaps in a fence and slipping in cow-trodden mud. Oh and did I mention the Belgian Bun? Should’ve brought a flask though.

Despite blue skies, winter finally touched me with its bone-chilling menace. This occurred right about the time Dad lost a lens hood. Buffeted by the arctic, layered up with everything I had, unable to feel my nose. What the bloody hell am I doing? My mind switching to Australia.

It is quite feasible that some people in Pewsey felt that I should have stayed put in Australia. I dunno, spending my Dad’s money in their out-of-the-way town on instant hot chocolate. And while I can appreciate perspectives on non-existent pandemic control at the borders, I couldn’t help but feel this was borne from a place of zero foreigners whatsoever. Perhaps, Little Britain style, a deluge of vomit ensued after my revelation that I was over here from Australia.

Not that anyone appeared to be really minding a pandemic the next day at Honeystreet Mill. Full tables feasting on bacon and eggs and sausages and beans and mushrooms and toast, emanating vapours with every loud voice and legume fart. I had come here with cake in mind, but it was hard to look past English bacon and sausages and HP sauce one last time. And besides, they do take away.

And so, packing cake, the journey continues onto that great city of London, steeped in drenching drizzle. It was a scaled-back visit in keeping with the times: one night only in a Paddington hotel, enabling an early start to the airport the next day. The hotel was everything you would expect of a Paddington terrace: behind the elegant façade, a labyrinthine warren of creaking floors and random stairs and polite notices. Washing muddy shoes in the shower wasn’t one of them.

For the remains of the day I endeavoured to make two brief encounters. This necessitated an adventure ride on the Underground to get to North London. From Edgware Road I hopped on the Circle Line which in my experience has always been a voyage that never seems to go anywhere in a hurry. On the plus side – I reasoned – it’s a subterranean affair, with opportunities for fresh air to mingle as you wait for no good reason at Baker Street. Occupying time, mask-counting is the new Metro-reading, and I would say an average of six and a half out of ten managed to comply on the Circle Line.

From Kings Cross I hopped onto the deeper, murkier Northern Line once more. Here I positioned myself by the windows at the end of a carriage to allow that sooty centuries-old air to take on my twin mask protection. I guess there are probably traces of the Spanish flu down here, along with Churchill’s cigar smoke and aromas from a Wimpy burger.

Maybe I just got lucky, but it was quiet, with mask-wearing approaching nine out of ten heading to those affluent, sensible suburbs of the north. The emerging light after Highgate never fails to bring relief, despite having done this trip hundreds upon hundreds of times in the past. And soon, at East Finchley, I hopped off into the late afternoon air.

The skies had brightened a little, prior to their disappearance into night. Cognisant of being on an aeroplane for days, I was keen to walk and talk with Caroline, aided by the thoughtful and cherished gift of some M&S chocolate biscuits. Through Cherry Tree Wood I remarked how I vaguely remembered walking this way once to Muswell Hill and lo and behold after not having a clue where we were heading we ended up in Muswell Hill. From there it wouldn’t have been so far to the Ally Pally but the drizzle set in once again and the pub sounded a better prospect.

Despite all the ridiculous nonsense spouted about freedom days and the sanctity of pubs from our self-styled post-war yearning libertarian warriors I rather enjoyed my two pints in the pub with an old friend. It just felt, well, normal. Like old days, like old lives. Yes we had our masks at the ready and sat far from the smattering of patrons, but it was almost as if a pandemic didn’t exist. Despite talking for 80% of the time about the bloody pandemic. I guess the alcohol maybe went to my head, but I remember that hour with much fondness.

I also remember dinner with much fondness, again propped up by a glass or two of wine and the company of more old friends. It was all too brief with Melita and Geoff and Orla and how I yearned to just linger and crash on the sofa and get up the next morning to walk to Victoria Park or up to North Finchley Sainsbury’s for hummus, edamame and more wine. The hope is for this sometime in 2022…

The final day of 2021 finds me sat writing this under a shady tree beside a lakeside bay in Canberra, Australia. A few families are scattered upon what counts for a beach, while a fluoro-white cockatoo shrieks from somewhere within a tall eucalyptus. Nursing me along, I managed to find one of the few coffee shops open – an Omicron lover’s dream – to pick up a takeaway. Accompanying shortbread comes courtesy of M&S at Terminal 3 of Heathrow. I had a lot of time at Terminal 3.

But I made it. After a PCR test, a cancelled flight, an airport hotel with buffet food, early coach pick-ups with whinging people, a nonstop coughing, nose-blowing man, Darwin, Sydney, driving down the highway to Canberra, three days of home quarantine followed by another bonus four, two more PCR tests and about six lateral flows. Horrible jet lag and a tired achy feeling that just wants to linger. Delights at being back and some disappointments. It was worth it all.

For the duration of my flight I was sat next to a well-masked older lady who was off to Sydney to see her son, his partner, and their son. A boy born under the shadow of COVID-19. This was her third attempt and I shouldn’t have been surprised at the obscenities flowing from her mouth at the first aborted take off. She just wanted to see her grandson for the very first time.

For ourselves and for others. This is why we do it and would do it all again. All the time holding on to the hope in our hearts that some sequels are better than the original.

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A tale of two Cornwalls

I doubt I could have arranged things any more perfectly for my long-awaited return to the coast of North Cornwall. Brilliant blue skies with barely a breath of wind. Quiet roads and quiet towns. Views to Lundy and North Devon and down the coast to Trevose. Coffee and walnut cake under the sun.

I’d like to say I stopped at Boscastle Farm Shop because my Mum and sister were on board and they needed a wee and some retail action but of course this was entirely a brilliant idea of my own making. Something to celebrate being together and seeing that rich blue line of the Atlantic stretching into infinity. Something to pay homage to the fruits of this most beautiful county of verdant green pasture and rugged, wild coast. A fillip to start the day off with a bang and another six million calories.

Boscastle. That place you come back to time and again just because. I would have done so without the delights of a farm shop café open on a weekday in November, but I also had a little extra motivation: Calendar Quest 2022, a frenetic mission to try to include a few shots that are not Australia in my annual make-Christmas-gift-giving-relatively-easy creation. Today, the challenge might be which one to pick.

An early Christmas gift offered inspiration to go just that little further, rising high above the crumpled S of the harbour as it makes its way to the ocean. I find it quite inexplicable that I had never risen to Penally Hill before, but every step was a moment. Perhaps a moment to capture in a calendar but we shall just have to wait and see.

In continuing happy vibes, the coast path from here is relatively flat, all the way along to Boscastle Farm Shop, where you could quite easily nip in for a cheeky slice of cake even though you had already done so. I didn’t, but next time.

As night follows day and cream follows jam, the next stop on this splendid day was inevitably Tintagel. An absolute ghost town, possibly haunted by Merlin’s beard. I have never seen the main strip so lifeless; so quiet I was able to drive to the very end, pull into a driveway outside Pengenna, and pick up a steak and Stilton pasty and a few cheese straws.

Last time I came to Tintagel there was the rude shock of finding out that Granny Wobbly’s Fudge Pantry had been taken over by some young punks from not round this way who had done some market research to tell them that people preferred fudge that was non-crumbly and bore an uncanny resemblance to something mass produced a long way away. Kind of like how people prefer a sausage roll from Greggs over something homemade from an independent bakery (oh, St. Agnes, next time…). Anyway, such was the speed at being able to get through Tintagel I didn’t even see if Grandkid Wankstain iFudge Laboratory was in business.

On that same visit I also discovered that it’s largely best to skip the high street of Tintagel altogether and head down from the town and up again with a ninety degree turn on a lane barely wide enough for your vehicle to park near St. Materiana’s Church. Perfect picnic vantages, and you can walk gently down towards Tintagel Castle without the prospect of a heart-busting climb back.

As timeless as it is, I sensed something different about this view. Oh, yeah, a great big brand spanking new shiny bridge connecting mainland Cornwall with the island. It’s the kind of place some ex-politician might visit as he walks the coast path for TV, grumbling about steps and characteristically enquiring about the use of some local slate during the first world war. It is undoubtedly a bridge made for TV and I rather like it.

As ex-politician muses on the mythical and spiritual energy of Tintagel island, he retreats for a final shot with a pint in hand at Trebarwith Strand. It’s a scene easy to enjoy, thanks to the enviable location of the Port William Inn. This time around I opt for an awful coffee, but I have my fudge stash (not from Tintagel) to make things better. The coast remains calm, the sky filling with high cloud, while the sun shifts lower towards the ocean. And you wonder if there is any better place in the world.

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A lot happened between that first visit to North Cornwall and the last. Storm Arwen. Omicron. Masks intermittently became a thing for some people again. Christmas parties at Number Ten. Depleted fudge stashes.

Returning in December, what was previously idyllic turned to something more irritating. Treats yearned for were closed. Parking and toilets were complicated and costly. Seagulls possessed added rage. And the weather was far more lousy, with frequent, heavy showers blowing in from the sea. However, amongst all this gloom there were just enough bright spots emerging precisely at the right moment to make everything seem absolutely wonderful again. This seems to me a very British condition, and not just in relation to the weather.

It was my last day in the South West before commencing the elongated journey back to Australia. In spite of several previous encounters, I had in mind a final cream tea though the allure of tasty jacket potatoes was also weighing on my mind. Maybe it was a day for both?

But first, another crappy coffee at Trevone Bay. Brought to you in association with a 50p toilet visit and a £60 parking fine. Complemented by a squally shower and chill wind. Footsteps upon the fine sandy cove cannot quite compensate, particularly when they sink into oozing outposts of the ocean.

Disappointment was threatening to turn into despair arriving at Carnewas. THE CAFE WAS CLOSED! Making things worse, staff were clearly present but busily affixing bunting and decking halls in preparation for Christmas shindigs. They should have been baking scones and potatoes, just for me. Didn’t they know how far I had come for this?

Mercifully the staggering coastline centred around Bedruthan Steps offered both comfort and awe. It usually does. A cloud front passed quickly overhead to reveal a strip of blue, illuminating the unstoppable lines of the ocean pulsating upwards into the receding beach and crashing upon the feet of mighty monoliths. The slightly frenzied sound of the surf funnelled up the high cliffs, out of sync with the sights below, as if in some badly dubbed episode of El Poldarko. Over towards Padstow, a rainbow glowed, set against a threatening sky heading our way. It was brief enlightenment.

Devoid of longed-for lunch, we retreated to Padstow to find something. Relative to many other towns on this trip it was positively buzzing, though not crazy enough to make parking down by the harbour a challenge. Among the odd restaurant inflated with a 25% Padstein premium, we counted at least four pasty shops. Kind of ridiculous really. With little other choice and not a great deal of enthusiasm, we opted for the best looking one.

Mum’s phone blared away somewhere in the depths of her bag. Distracted, the local seagull population espied an opportunity. A close call were it not for my wild screaming. By now, they sensed a kill and stalked us all the way back to the car. And so most of our time in Padstow was spent eating reasonable pasties in a silver Suzuki while webbed feet pounded the roof. A long way from the dream lunch I envisioned.

Not to be disheartened I knew of a potential ace up my sleeve. Or at least a Queen of Hearts. Midway between here and home there is a café actually open at Cardinham Woods, selling a decent scone with decent jam and indecent cream. Just the way I like it. Tomorrow I would be travelling to Wiltshire. Then onto London. Then, god-willing, Australia. I can only really properly farewell Cornwall – come rain or shine – in the most appropriate way. Handsome.

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About town

A part of me was dreading going into Plymouth City Centre. The goal: obtain cheap greeting cards, find a secret Santa present and see if I can pick up any of those free tests for the covids. Entering Card Factory double-masked felt every bit the gauntlet run, as old dears shuffled slowly through the narrow aisle, perusing every single Christmas card for every single family member. I swiftly picked up a box of impersonal festive cards, another random selection of five for a quid, and – unfortunately in haste – a birthday card for a non-existent sister-in-law. Meanwhile, my secret Santa exceeded the five pound limit, an extra two pounds worth it for the relief of not venturing into multiple stores rubbing up against bare faced contaminants.

The fresh air, ah the fresh air. Unfortunately it is also quite dull air as I reserve such conditions for trips to town, rather than waste good sunshine on Primark and Costa. This means the view from Plymouth Hoe today is rather monotone. The red of Smeaton’s Tower is subdued, while the placid water of the Sound passes a blur of Drake’s Island as it meets a similar shaded horizon.

By time I reach the Barbican, the gloom lifts a little and I feel in the mood for a coffee on the quay. Nearby Boston Tea Party offers potential for something half-decent but ends up with me confronting the prospect of sitting inside for a whole five minutes. It’s something to do with the worthy cause of not using takeaway cups. Never have I drunk an average latte in such rapid a time.

It’s kind of nice to wander Plymouth, even though it feels as if I am skimming through. As I pass, people continue to vape like there is no tomorrow (or airborne virus), queue along Royal Parade for a Citybus home, arrive en masse at Poundland. There are new things and old things and things which have simply changed their position. New things like ‘The Barcode’ and ‘The Box’ – while hardly inspiring in name – at least offer the sense of a city progressing. Old things either decay with neglect or prosper in their complex history.

One thing unchanged for a while are the two bridges crossing the River Tamar. I head to these later on the same day hoping for some kind of repeat of a previous sunset. I was intending to view proceedings from the Devon side but inadvertently get stuck crossing the road bridge and end up in Cornwall. While this provides a touch of charm down by the river in Saltash, I am fuming inside at the prospect of paying two pounds toll on the way back. I walk over to Devon nonetheless, and back to Cornwall again, as the daylight fades.

From this lofty vantage I can see further down the Tamar as it passes the Dockyard and enters the Sound. It is around there that Devil’s Point and the adjoining Royal William Yard provide a pleasant outlet from city noise and grime. I find myself in that vicinity the next morning, the gloom having well and truly lifted to a blue sky day. Being November, a chill remains in the hard stone buildings and shady wind tunnels of the Yard. Better seek the sea for reflection of warmth.

Nearby, Firestone Bay has risen in prominence thanks to the growth of wild swimming, visiting wildlife and posing figures on Instagram. I take time for a coffee and delicious slice of some kind here; these slices always propel the quality of the coffee in my memory. It’s only then that I notice the latest resident seal, chilling out on the shingle as the odd swimmer and paddleboarder lathers up. Calm and sparkling, it feels a long way from the city, and the congested aisles of Card Factory.

This is the Plymouth I could see myself in, the one where it is eternally sunny and I am literally strolling around beside the ocean with a decent coffee without having to work or shop for cut-price greeting cards. It is an unattainable Plymouth in reality, only appearing in these brief snippets of circumstance and good fortune. In such fleeting passage, they are of a Plymouth to treasure and remember. And to hope for in time again.

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The air that I breathe

Where do I begin? Faced with the rare overstimulation of drives to Sydney and flights to Darwin and much, much longer flights to Heathrow and double masking and swabs being shoved up noses and drives down the A303 and bacon and egg butties and autumn leaves and Ken Bruce still on BBC Radio 2 and drizzle? Where do I begin?

With speed bumps. Some shit may have gone down since May 2019 but if there is one upside to this passage of time it is the erosion of speed bumps along Eggbuckland Road, Plymouth. Approaching ‘home’ again I no longer need to brake every ten metres or so but can happily glide without delay towards long awaited reunions.

I suppose in this the neglect of governments proves to have its upsides. Or literal lack of them. Perhaps this flattening of speed bumps is what he means when he can be arsed to bumble out piffle like “levelling up”.

I may have been away for long but Britain feels a strange place to be in these days. COVID-normal Britain even stranger, particularly so for an arrival from the antipodes. It’s not an especially appealing destination in November 2021 yet somehow I crave it. Because here there are connections. And cream teas.

What I don’t usually come to Britain for is the coffee. However it is fair to say the serving from Olive & Co at Siblyback Lake on my first day there was bordering on the realms of impressive. To my delicate Australian ways, the sign requesting limitations on the number of people entering to order takeaway was also reassuring. Until a couple naturally disregarded this with their smug mask-free faces, as if they alone had conquered a whole pandemic.

To recover from this distress Mum and I did the whole sit outside in eight degrees under grey skies thing. Still, the outside world offered an antidote to everything else going on, those rolling green hills of the Cornish countryside feasted on once again by my hungry eyes. Damp, earthy air filled my nostrils while my mouth also came to be amply occupied.

Near Siblyback, the River Fowey twists and tumbles irresistibly toward the sea, a whitewater ride packaged together as Golitha Falls. It’s popular with dogs and photographers and people in wellies walking dogs and taking photos. Among woodland clinging on to the final browns of autumn, mossy tree trunks tell of the abundance of moisture all around. It feels like it will be this way at least until May. Or more likely forever.

Enduring cake at Siblyback, it took a whole twenty four hours to reacquaint myself with a proper cream tea. Again outside, but this time under brighter skies within the charming village of Widecombe in the Moor. Considering it had been two and a half years, it took a good five minutes to arrange a photo shoot and administer jam and cream by which time the tea was lukewarm and scone a bit dry. But it went down well all the same.

Was it enough to justify a complicated trip to Britain in November 2021? Well, probably not. But pan out from that village green onto the expanse of Dartmoor above and the tables begin to turn. Peaceful, dramatic, enchanting, quintessential, comforting, fresh. Perfect skies and vistas and air to share with Mum. And the anticipation of a couple more weeks of COVID Britain in store. Surely enough time for another cream tea or two.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography