A lady walking along a coastal path
— Leave a Comment

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.

………………………………………..

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.

………………………………………..

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

………………………………………..

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
— Leave a Comment

The size of scones

Do you ever get asked to recount the favourite part of your holiday? Or to share the best thing about <insert multifaceted, dynamic, diverse country you have just visited>? Usually it’s a question posed upon returning home when people want to take an interest but not too much interest. And it’s a struggle to answer.

As an indecisive Libran who treasures so many little things and rarely chooses favourites unless they come from Cadbury, I find it an infuriating question. Just one thing? However, in true contrarian fashion, this year I may just have settled on something. As memories fade with each day, one that stands out stronger than the rest, when time could happily stand still.

I won’t head there yet because I’m going to resume talking about the weather. A gorgeous morning in Plymouth, clear and calm skies offering the best beach prospect of the entire trip. When Plymouth shines usually the South Hams shine stronger. So there is an even greater feeling of despondency as we drift through sunny villages towards a distinct band of cloud. ‘Typical’ is the exasperated utterance of choice. Why didn’t we go west?!

With glimmers of promise becoming sparser, we decamp at Kingsbridge under an atmosphere of light grey. The mission here is to get a bite to eat, and what a mission when there are nine of us. Still, I was surprised to find quite the high street tucked away from the quay, rising up in a Totnes kind of vein. Not enough bakeries and tea shops but I’d already done some noteworthy coffee and cake down by the bus stop.

The cloud was lingering as we arrived at Thurlestone, a site steadily establishing itself as the South Devon go-to beach of choice, mainly because of reasonable parking and accessibility which was made all the stronger by bringing a footstool for that one last big step down to the sand. The beach here is essentially one end of South Milton and while that area involves regimented National Trust-controlled fleecing and pop up Instabars, this quieter side has more of a traditional bury your kids in a hole after they have mild hypothermia from the water kind of vibe.

Certainly my tippy toe experience ascertained hypothermia would take a matter of minutes. But at least in one direction there was hope on the horizon with acres of overhead blue progressively creeping closer. Finally bright spells transform to basking weather, when the outside temperature is marginally warmer than the sea.

A beach and the ocean

Hope was also on the other horizon, or just over a headland. This meant navigating an increasingly naked stretch of South Milton, admiring some highland cows and other bovines. A couple of undulations later and we overlook Hope Cove, bustling and bursting, a long way from my first acquaintance with the place a couple of decades ago on a cool and cloudy late winter’s day.

A cow standing in some water

There are a few memories from Hope Cove, the most enduring being on that first occasion, retreating to an empty pub and becoming acquainted with the joys of a perfectly baked treacle tart paired with local clotted cream. It’s something that hasn’t been replicated or improved on since. Today, the pub is busy and treacle tart is absent from the menu. I make do with a dollop of Salcombe Dairy from the general store. There will be sweeter, creamier days ahead.

Three people standing on some cliffs overlooking a village

And so that brings us to Trago Mills, undoubtedly not the highlight of the trip but a necessary forerunner. A space to wait out some time as the day warms up, the sunshine bringing extra sweetness to massive trays of strawberries for a pound. I once remember a friendly debate with an Australian when I lauded the superiority of English berries. And while I concede the blueberries and raspberries are broadly on a par, I challenge anyone in Australia to come up with a strawberry as succulent as that of an English summer. My partner, Avery, says she will never eat an Australian one again. We both can’t handle the disappointment.

What goes with strawberries I hear you say? Cream. Cream also goes with treacle tart and brownie and ice cream and plum pudding and meringue and anything really. Scones of course are the natural partner, a marriage made often in Devon. There is always a risk that the second time round will not live up to the first, but I doth my cap to Lustleigh. And forever will pay it homage.

Scenes from a village with a church, tearooms and thatched cottage

Scones and cream and cream and scones

This is an occasion that lingers, but in a way which sets up a perfect moment in time, a perfect holiday memory. Sated in warm sunshine, meandering along the brook in the village orchard. Through clumps of apples, the swings and benches and thatched roofs and church spire cluster around a tearoom. Avery and I wander, attracted by the vivid blue and green demoiselle zipping above the water. Spread out, family are equally soaking in their own little thing, their own quiet corner of contentment. Time feels like it stands still here and you very much wish you could stand still with it. But we have to move on, there are questions to face.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Walking
— Leave a Comment

The size of seagulls

It’s not the most refined accent. I mean you’re never gonna hear James Bond strut into the Monte Carlo casino and loudly proclaim “tooe fowzund orn red me luverr an whyul yer at itt get me a razzbrie jinn an tonik and a monsder, ulryte.”

Strolling on The Hoe for what seems the umpteenth time, there is nonetheless something welcoming and endearing and genuinely warm in those Janner conversations. From the gentle ribbing of old fellas on the bowling green to the underdressed sass of bored teens flirting with each other like primitive amoeba beside the red and white lighthouse, Welcome to Plymouth. So often a staging post, but also a refuge.

A red and white lighthouse with a sunset

I was exploring The Hoe again on my thrice daily walk from the Crowne Plaza hotel, an unexpected but probably not surprising Covid ‘holiday’ (yes, remember that?!). Booked hastily and not inexpensively with sketchy Wi-Fi I was hopeful for a sea view and comforting extras but, apart from a fluffy dressing gown, we were greeted with concrete wall vistas and an experiment in faded 80s minimalism. All very Plymouth. But still, at least the window opened slightly and I had an outlet into the world.

The need for fresh air was paramount, the problem being the howling winds buffeting against brutalist architecture at three in the morning. It has been rare on this trip to experience a still day, equally as rare to feel hot. At best I think I have felt pleasantly warm three times: an afternoon at Thurlestone, utopia revisited in Lustleigh, and in a tiny Cornish microclimate.

I’ll tell you about them in time but, for now, let’s journey up to Brentor. A landmark church sitting atop a rocky outcrop from which there are sweeping views of Dartmoor and half of Cornwall. Visible as we sauntered around Yelverton, disappearing as we whizzed to its base. As murky and disappointing as a coffee van beverage. One might kindly describe both as atmospheric and moody. Or perhaps just typical.

Some hills in fog

Still, give it a couple of hours and a helping of Tavistock chilli and all will be swell. Post-lunch sunshine beams down on glowing moorland and hazy glades. Cows amble nonchalantly across the tarmac while sheep chill out on the grass. German caravans pause on single track lanes to admire the zeitgeist.

My brother sates himself on Willys before we soak up the splendour from Cox Tor. Gorse and granite and ponies pepper the surrounds, leading to outlooks upon a wildness that is rare for these isles. As the uplands creep down into river valleys and patchwork fields, an outpost stands resolute in the west. The unmistakable landmark of Brentor, aglow.

Barren moorland under blue skies

Views of green countryside with ponies in the foreground

Downhill and back in Plymouth there continue intermittent spells of sunshine with which to grasp some form of hope. I quickly adjust to checking the BBC weather app and buy into the unfounded optimism that is going out without an extra layer in August. And briefly it seems the right call, as sun breaks through on the Barbican and we can sup on okay coffee as oversized seagulls strut their stuff and oversized men in green shirts strut theirs.

Then we head to Argyle and a gloom sets in. A chill wind, a portent of life under Rooney perhaps? Sure we have a padded seat and two free, unsurprisingly mediocre pasties, but that wind is reminiscent of a 0-0 draw in February against Grimsby rather than a lively one-all in August versus Hull. I have been there countless times.

A lady in a football stadium

I sit and wonder what Avery thinks of thousands of grown men and women belting out Janners? A what-the-heck moment both incredulous and incredible. I sense some awe and bemusement, and she embraces the moment by pulling on a recently purchased argyle top. Mostly because of that chill.

Travelling with someone coming to England for the first time you can tend to forget all this is a little weird. Like meal deals and massive bumblebees and little dogs on trains heading for a day out in the drizzle. Not to mention the size of those seagulls. All I notice that’s different are bottle tops no longer separable from their hosts. Out of habit, I endeavour to tear them apart anyway, frequent dribble resulting on my pants.

A local trait I may have lost is to not put too much trust in the weather forecast, although this results in occasional merry times when it surpasses expectations as well as the regular underperformance. Scones in a shower at Mount Edgecumbe? Why not, especially since this is the last such occasion (scones not showers) for the year. And the sun will radiate in the thousands of flowers and the warmth of loved ones anyway.

scones, jam, cream, tea and a garden full of red and white flowers

Having low expectations is the birthright of a Plymothian (and is most manifest when it comes to Argyle). So it is a merry time in and around Noss Mayo when the clouds hold back. A walk of such dear character, of such Devonian charm. Farmhouses (or Airbnbs) surrounded by fields of wheat, cows and sheep peeking above the hedgerows, true blue sea and green, green grass, cottages, flowers and bunting galore. A pub on the water, a Ploughman’s and some local murky brew like Otter’s Arse. All just in time before the sumptuous plop of a first raindrop.

a red robin, a signpost by the sea and boats on a river

A village of cottages beside a creek

The rain sets in on the Barbican. We hunker down in a café and bike shop, optimistic about the chances of decent coffee when it’s associated with Lycra. It’s not bad; the flat whites remain too small and strong and the lattes a little weak. All they need to do is find that middle ground. Maybe one or two more years.

I’ll be back to taste. Next week, next year. Always Plymouth, Janners, Seagulls and all. Semper Fidelis.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey
— 1 Comment

My precious

Devon can be many things. A terrible processed meat in the deli counter at Coles. A fast bowler from the nineties. A hotbed of interbreeding rivalry between two cities. An hour of everybody’s time wasted in Escape to the Country. An elongated farmyard on the way to Cornwall. But, always, a sprawling canvas in which are sewn indelible gems, both sparkling and subtle.

The subtle, hidden ones are of course the best. These are the unassuming pockets that do their best impression of Tolkien’s Shire, before all that weird dark wizardry and multiple three hour orcfests came knocking at the door. Think thatched homes and fluffy rabbits and green hills and apple orchards and beady-eyed locals with distorted feet, living under an angle of sun that always casts a golden hue.

In a county that does a commendable impression of The Shire, it is perhaps apt that I should find myself on a special quest. Allied with a peculiar looking fellowship seeking out a special ring…of luxuriant clotted cream smeared atop treacly strawberry jam coating a fluffy, crunchy, warm cloud of a scone. It has been some mission.

Where to find this precious, last sighted many years ago lost in the valley of Badgeres Holte? Perhaps nestled among the shapely hills and sinewy estuaries of the South Hams? Possibly, but it is far too easy to get distracted by hog roast baps on the way to Thurlestone. And on glorious days beside the sea, ice cream is usually the natural order of events.

The quilted green squares of the South Hams do their best to go on forever (especially if you are driving the A379 in August), but from vantage points you can see the uplands of Dartmoor. Here it can often feel a bit more Mordor, particularly wedged between cold walls of granite as mists swirl, gusts of wind making diagonal raindrops feel like a thousand steel barbs. You’d quite fancy a dip in Mount Doom frankly.

Protection though comes in the valleys and the inns, one of which offers up one of the stingiest serves of cream tea in the whole of Devon. You can have silver platters and waistcoats all you like, but a dainty teaspoon of cream for three people is never going to fulfil a quest. Or sustain enough until a Toby Carvery.

Perhaps the pickings are too thin upon this high wilderness or perhaps this is just some benefit of Brexit or whatever (yes I went there, too soon?). There is an untrammelled and capacious beauty in the high moor, but it is somehow at its very best, at its most precious, where the outreaches of civilisation and cultivation lap at the rocky tors and sheep-strewn bracken. This could be a state of mind as much an aesthetic, reassurance that down in the fields there is life, possibly even grazing cows, and maybe a café with a nice scone.

The area around Sheepstor is such an area and one I am happy to take footsteps within time and again. Late afternoon and into evening it was pleasing to share it with fellow adventurers, though our end destination on this occasion was wholesome food and ale in the Walkhampton Inn. Another welcome staging post to add to the list of options when travelling through this way.

And so the end of the journey draws closer. It would have been difficult to eventually fulfil this quest without the insight and companionship of others. Like those who did their research among indistinguishable five star reviews proclaiming every cream tea anywhere “the best one I’ve ever had” only for reality to reveal a dry, crumbly, measly mess. And for those who – during the course of quite a few years – accompanied me to pokey cafes in seaside towns or faced National Trust disappointment or journeyed with hope through the Shire to encounter a dry, crumbly, measly mess.

And then there are also those who drove me to a small village in the borderlands between the countryside and the moor.

A small village out of Hobbiton central casting, centred around a church green, fringed by a babbling brook glistening in the golden sun. Birds and butterflies flit from stone walls to thatched roofs while walkers pass through on their way to higher places. Quiet, unassuming, charming and with a small, unpretentious, homely café in the heart. Or should I say – even better – tea room. Screw your gold disappeary ring, bring me one of those cream teas right now.

Among the excitement, among the relief there is deep sadness that there are people who cannot join us as we complete the mission. They certainly were wholesome advocates of such adventure and had their fair share of memorable bites and dollops through the years. Lovers of Devon, the Shire and the very simple amalgam of people and nature together, the simple amalgam too of jam and cream. We eat – and we eat a lot with joy and with heart and possibly with some clogged up heart as well – in their honour. Together, it is very, very precious.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography
— Leave a Comment

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.

——————————-

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.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking
— Leave a Comment

Down on the south coast

Apparently, the Cornish pasty has been a feature of the British diet since the 14th century. Originally the preserve of rich inbred gentry it wasn’t until the 18th century that the pasty became a nourishing treat for the masses. Today, go to any coastal town or village in Cornwall and the pervasiveness of pasties for the people persists.

In some spots the choice can appear bewildering. This includes the chainstorisation of Britain making its presence felt at heavily branded outlets offering crafted goods from industrial Solihull. But at the other end of the scale, it’s possible you may stumble across bona fide nooks hidden down narrow passageways, replete with evocative odours and large steel trays of steaming hot goodness fresh from the oven.

Looe has such a place (along with the odd chain) and it’s become a site of regular pilgrimage, competing with a cream tea in the what-will-Neil-eat-first adventure. Today – a Monday at the end of November – Looe is unusually becalmed. Indeed, many shops and eateries are closed. But thankfully Sarah’s is trading and offering a few remaining pasties as the day nears half one. Despite tending towards lukewarm, a two and a half year gap in this experience generates immense delight with that first bite.

Eating beside the seafront, the tide is low. Apart from the beach, this doesn’t exactly provide the most favourable impression of Looe. The river estuary empties to leave a patchwork of boats tilting high and dry. Salty seaweed spreads across oozing mud, offering a pungency almost as bad as the aroma of entrails swept from the fish market. And of course, everywhere, seagulls lurk desperate for winter pasties few and far between.

So, after a pause to collect further delicacies at Roly’s Fudge, Mum and I hot foot it out of town and head on to Polperro. This is – on paper – a more charming prospect though one you’d do well to steer clear of in the height of summer. That’s why I thought we could give it a shot today.

Indeed Polperro was quiet. Deathly quiet. Barely anything was open but this didn’t deter two very Polperro occurrences. First, we have the sight of a delivery van somehow trying to squeeze through a gap between whitewashed cottages as locals roll their eyes knowingly at one another. And secondly, there remains the rip-off parking on a cold grey day in November when jack all is open.

I expected non-summertime parking rates but forgot this was Polperro where the emphasis appears to be on doing everything possible to deter day trippers. As one of a handful, I felt a touch conspicuous trawling the streets with my camera and decided it was a good day to warm my head with a Plymouth Argyle beanie and thus parade – admittedly Devonian – credentials.

In low sun, the beanie was a handy addition as half of the village sat in perennial shade. While a series of cute cottages on the east side of the harbour beamed in fine, holiday-let whitewash, others faded into the dark and damp recesses of an impending winter. Striding out to the headland I could see Mum sat on a bench on the quay in the last receding corner of sun. And with a brief hello to the South West Coast Path, I set off back down through the shade to join her.

By now we were both thinking afternoon treat, or at least a coffee beside the tidal mud. But of course, nothing suitable was open. Being here in November was to prove both a blessing and a curse; cherishing the lack of bother and stress associated with thousands of tourists, taking advantage of quicker than usual drives and – sometimes – free parking, yet being more at mercy to the weather and missing out on some of the usual local treats and delicacies (I never did end up having an ice cream for instance).

A similar picture played out a little further along the south coast on a different jaunt to Fowey. At picturesque Readymoney Cove, where I parked nearby for free, the kiosk supposedly open year round was obviously shut. Yet I was able to drive through the town and park again by the water, a prospect unfathomable in summer. Here at least a few spots were open and a coffee carried through attractive streets to a riverside bench offered contentment.

Lunch was a different matter, in brief taking in the disavowal of cold pasties in Fowey, a fruitless search for something in Lostwithiel and dismissal of a covidy café at a hoity toity garden centre (seriously, why not let us sit outside?). As a result, lunchtime had been and gone and options were running out. The last real opportunity was to return to Looe.

If you’ve actually been reading any of this babble you would know a pasty was a possibility here. But I was concerned at what would be left on the tray and how warm it might be. And the clock was clearly ticking over towards afternoon cream tea territory. So, we took a punt off the main drag, up a small hill. A short deviation that I’m sure will be repeated again. Daisy’s Café added to the what-will-Neil-eat-first adventure list. Making Looe the place where a wicked dilemma can finally be resolved: is it possible to have a pasty and cream tea on the same day? Roll on 2022!

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey
— Leave a Comment

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
— Leave a Comment

A day out!

Confinement within the boundaries of the Australian Capital Territory may sound like a nightmare to some people – mostly us privileged types who can jokingly equate it to being in prison. All without actually ever facing the very real prospect of being imprisoned. Still, I suppose it could be tough to be restricted within the clutches of a modern, affluent, well-resourced city without access to an episode of Fawlty Towers that has been shown a zillion times already in my lifetime. Oh the suffrage some people have to endure!

Other than perhaps anywhere in New Zealand, this city – Canberra – has arguably been the best place in the world to be of late. Okay, it is getting a bit chully now, but I can warm myself up with great coffee and a walk in one of the many suburban parks, bushland reserves, and panoramic hills. I have been doing a lot of that lately. 

We have also been largely spared – for now – the health calamity that is Coronavirus. One hundred and eight confirmed cases in total. Only one of whom emerged in the last month: emerging from overseas and allowed to travel to Canberra because of a novel form of protection called Diplomatic Immunity. Everyone I have spoken to suspects a Yank. Because, well, you know.

Due to this good fortune and what can be fairly summarised as competent management – when did basic competence become the gold standard some of us can only yearn for from our leaders – restrictions have eased over time. Yes, the rules can seem a tad bewildering, requiring a protractor and solid understanding of trigonometry as well as a ready supply of hand sanitiser and guarded interaction. But now I can do things I would never do anyway, such as participating in a bootcamp or going to church. Never in a month of Sundays. Still, it is nice to feel like you could do them.

As of the start of this month, we were also allowed to travel outside of the ACT for leisure purposes. Being largely content in the territory, I didn’t rush off down to the coast on the first day of restrictions easing like half of the population, despite that particular day being grey, cool, and windy. Neither did I really leverage any benefit from not one, but two public holidays: one to acknowledge first Australians and promote reconciliation and harmony, the other to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s non-birthday. Yeah, go figure.

I think somewhere in my walking rambles during the midst of containment I made a sarcastic comment about the prospect of a day trip to Goulburn being something to look forward to. It was the kind of comment everyone not living in Canberra was making about Canberra. For us, we always have Goulburn. So, the day came when I finally decided I could set foot across the border and where better to head than Goulburn. Only I never actually made it; there is only so much excitement one can take after all.

About two-thirds of the way between Canberra and Goulburn is the small village of Collector. It is well-known in these parts for its pumpkin festival, an annual spectacular that fell victim this year to COVID cancel culture, a situation that probably explains why I can now buy a whole pumpkin for 99 cents. Beyond the soothing sounds of the Federal Highway and a growing population of scarecrows with gourd faces, what does Collector have to offer, I mused?

The first thing to highlight is a very fine coffee stop. To tell the truth, this is why I decided I could rationalise my first escape from the ACT to what is largely a featureless paddock on the fringe of waterless Lake George. It’s called Some Café and it benefits from a proximal relationship to the capital. Housed in a heritage building along with a wine tasting area, it conjures country charm with hipster-infused chill. I feel the cake display could be enhanced, but the coffee was indeed very fine and the cheese and ham toastie the stuff of the dreams I have been having ever since I watched that episode of Masterchef where they made toasties in the first round. Cheesy dreams.  

Incidentally, upon leaving the café I noticed the logo resembles someone washing their hands. I mean, it might be clapping at the borderline pretentious latte art or rubbing your hands with glee at the prospect of Pialligo smoked bacon in a Three Mills bap. But in this day and age it is definitely someone washing their hands. Given this logo was there before the onset of COVID-19, one can actually imagine a handful of conspiracy theorists directing their unending keyboard war at a small café in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. There is even a phone mast on the nearby ridge for goodness sake!

Dodging death rays and applying sanitiser positioned at the exit, I moved on to explore the rest of Collector. Outside of pumpkin festival time it is eerily quiet, apart from the hum of trucks upon the nearby highway. Everyone is probably in church, given the village (population 313) has three from which to choose: Anglican, Uniting and Catholic. Penance for the bushrangers.  

The other place of worship in town is the pub, the Bushranger Hotel, with rooms looking out over farming country and a weird labour of love known as the Dreamer’s Gate. A gothic sculpture formed from cement and chicken wire, it resembles something that would feature in the Gunning and Breadalbane Amateur Dramatic Society’s production of Harry Potter and the Golden Horned Trans Merino. I can’t say I’m a massive fan, but I admire the dedication of its artist and his ability to piss off half of the locals.

Looping back towards Some Café from here, the road ran alongside a patch of farmland and the narrow course of Collector Creek. Given rain, it’s pleasant enough country with water even visible in the creek; not something that is guaranteed I’m sure.

It was around this point I was thinking how nice it would be to have a walk in the countryside. Yet this doesn’t really seem to be a thing in Australia – walking tracks are largely concentrated in some national parks and city reserves. There isn’t the same antiquated network of lanes and byways with right to roam as in the UK. So much country is locked out to the public, fenced off, dug away, blown up, guarded by deadly snakes. I think it’s a shame and also a missed opportunity. Imagine the benefits, for instance, if you were more impelled to pull off the Federal Highway and head into Collector, have a good coffee and a slice of cake, set off on a ramble for a few hours, and finish up in the pub. The same could be said for Gunning, Yass, Crookwell, Taralga, Tarago, Bungendore etc etc. Landholders unite!

Leaving Collector I did at least find something akin to a country lane. Eschewing the highway, I took a narrow road full of potholes towards the even smaller settlement of Breadalbane. It was so narrow (for Australia) that at one point I had to pull in to allow the only other car on it to proceed towards Collector. I’m not saying it would be a great walk or anything, but I definitely saw some cycling potential. For a start, it was mostly flat, with a small rise at what I think would be a good turn around point. It was very open, so you would see oncoming traffic. There are country sights to absorb, mostly sheep. And you could of course start and finish at Some Café, a cyclist’s dream. Just need to pick a wind-free, mild day. Perhaps Spring.

At what must have been Breadalbane I was starting to get a bit giddy being around fifty kilometres away from the ACT border. I could have turned right for Goulburn but thought I would save that for another exciting day out. Left was Gunning and – true to form, true to the real purpose of this day out – I knew of a good café there. By time I prevaricated and pottered about a little it would be acceptable afternoon tea hours.

A little shy of Gunning there is a small bridge over a small creek offering a sense of intimacy among a big land and big sky. It’s a peaceful scene, with a rail crossing and old pumphouse rising above a landscape that may occasionally flood. It would probably make another fine spot to set off on a walk, following the waterway and gradually climbing up to the gentle hills of the Cullerin Range, bedecked with wind turbines and unending views. All I can do is stop by the road and wait for clouds to blow through to reveal the sun. 

The main reason I pause here is not only to kill time before afternoon tea, but to compare thee to a summer’s day. I came this way for the first time in December; those pre-COVID days that were only mired in ravaging drought, catastrophic bushfires and ‘Getting Brexit Done’, whatever that is supposed to mean. Back then, a few sheep were grazing under the bridge, clinging to remnant water like everything else seeking survival. In the sweet spot around February – the only two weeks of 2020 that were any good – the rains finally arrived. And today the sheep are nowhere to be seen, happily grazing elsewhere in a land of plenty.

Talking of grazing, the time for afternoon tea was getting closer, though I dragged things out a little further by taking in the sights of Gunning. This didn’t take too long, but I at least discovered a rough track through a park that followed a creek and for a few hundred metres resembled something akin to the replication of a simulation of a fake countryside walk. Leading from here I also ambled through a back lane decorated with the occasional section of crumbling brickwork overtaken by rampant undergrowth. In one garden, a Merino chewed upon the lawn, oblivious to the perils of a rusting trampoline.

Gunning has just the one high street offering an eclectic mix of styles and wares. A large warehouse hosts agricultural supplies. A row of Victorian-era shops display almost antiques and woollen craftwork. A garage straight out of the Midwest services passing trade. There is of course a pub and a couple of cafes to lure people off of the Hume Highway.

It was also back in dry December that I popped into one of these – the Merino Café – for a morning coffee accompanied by a delicious caramel macadamia ANZAC slice concoction. Back then it was justified by a desire to support small country communities doing it tough through the drought. Today it was about spending money in small businesses trying to get back on their feet through the COVID crisis. There is always some rationale and worthiness in cake. 

The slice, along with several other varieties of fat and sugar, was still there, but a counter-top display of scones tempted and teased. Accepting the reality of disappointing cream, I was still tempted enough. And, yes, the cream was disappointing, but the scone itself was rather good.

All I needed now was a bloody good walk to burn off some of the indulgence. Looking at the map, the closest place for a bloody good walk in reality was Canberra. Yes, for all the breaking out of borders, I have to return to Canberra to go for a walk. You get the point. Country NSW: Cakes plentiful. Walks lacking.

I did at least take a stroll that included views of country NSW, discovering yet another small section of Mulligans Flat including more of its border fence. With a lowering afternoon sun and a combination of farmland and forest vistas, it was just the tonic after those relatively sedate and calorific country pursuits.

And then, with clouds congregating in a fashion that could yield a sunset spectacular, I made a last-minute call to stay out and see what might happen. Now back in the heart of Canberra I parked the car near Government House and wandered beside the lake. The sunset spectacle never really eventuated, but the light and tranquillity reminded of why this lucky little city is still one of the best places to be right now.

In fact, it’s even proving popular to those who live outside its boundaries. Among the entrails of dubious information and petulance located on Twitter I came across an article about how a trip to Canberra was generating excitement for those so confined in their oppressive Sydney bubble. Haw-bloody-haw. What do you think this is, Goulburn or something? Just don’t take all our cakes when you come here. And call in on a few towns and villages along the way.  

Australia Driving Food & Drink Green Bogey
— Leave a Comment

Green boggy

Humans, like the weather, are nothing if not contrary. Can it really be the same species that were so recently sharing in collective despair with heartfelt empathy, ceaselessly giving anything from money to clothes to fence posts to time to hope, who now go about pulling each other’s hair out for another six pack of three ply?

It may well be, much like the weather, that in the Venn diagram of the good and bad, the heart-warming and the head-banging, there is only a little intersection between the two. Or perhaps we are all a little conflicted. Like a leaden cloud threatening to burst or simply waiting to be dispelled by the sun. Depending which way the wind blows. A phenomenon that might also explain the contents of certain supermarket trolleys.

What seems incontrovertible is that 2020 continues to produce a hell of a lot of crap, evidently more so in those double garages stocked with 2,000 rolls of toilet paper. And while the bare aisles of toilet tissue land make me feel bemused, I quietly sneak an extra jar of pasta sauce into my basket.

There could be fewer worthy places to stockpile a years’ worth of bog roll than on the South Coast of NSW. A beautiful corner of the world both pallid and sick and overflowing with life and love. A place whose interior is savaged but whose heart and soul are still beating. A place that could use a little helping (washed) hand to thrive once again. Mother nature has applied some balm through its cloud and rain and now we – the good we – can try to offer a little gentle sunshine.

The landscape of the South Coast region right now is simply astonishing in so many ways. The crest of Clyde Mountain confronts with brutal savagery, an unending parade of blackened trees and blackened earth yielding views down to the coast that were not previously available. Yet the vibrant tree ferns and epicormic shoots sprouting from trunks seem to defy death. On the fringes of Mogo, that all too familiar sight of summer – of twisted metal and crumpled fireplace – sits within a vivid, bounteous green. The village too a bustle of people purchasing pendants, peculiarities and pies.

sc01

The beaches of the region are as good as ever, which is to say, pretty damn perfect. At Broulee, a small patch of charred dune prompts memories of a video from the beach on New Year’s Eve, a small spot fire exploding and causing understandable angst amongst those who had fled to the water’s edge. Today, the sands are peppered with people bathing, fun and laughter filling the air. Much of the lush coastal fringe of spotted gums and fern trees along the road to Moruya seems unscarred.

sc02From Tuross Head you can see the ranges of Deua National Park to the west. No doubt a regular sight of alarm at night, illuminated by flame that flickered and flared to its own shape and will. Constantly on edge, unknowing as to where and how far it would come, the fires never did reach Tuross, at least in physical form.

This is home for a few nights and what a fine home: close to the rugged beaches and barely open shops, in proximity to numerous opportunities to spend money and eat food and lose golf balls. A home coming with the bonus of a billiard table for evening entertainment; my knowledge on the placement of snooker balls stemming from lyrics recalled of Snooker Loopy featuring Chas and Dave. Pot the red and screw back, for the yellow green brown blue pink and black… Yeah, in your dreams.

sc03

It would be fair to say that despite limitations I was a far better snooker and pool player than golfer on this trip. Which says more about my golfing doom than my snooker prowess. Still, it was good to make a hefty contribution to the community of Narooma by zig-zagging around its golf course. A perfectly sliced and skied lay up on its famous third hole almost yielded a par, and I managed a par four somewhere else in between much larger figures. The added challenge of a series of greens being perforated, sanded and watered provided further good excuses for inadequacy.

sc04

With Narooma receiving an economic injection, the next place on the spending list was Bodalla, specifically its dairy and cheese factory. In times like these you’ve got to do your utmost to support these local businesses and so it was with considerable reluctance that I forced down a toastie oozing with cheese followed up with an ice cream. You do what you can do.

sc05

The following day endured cool and grey, reminiscent of typical coastal awaydays of the past. This might have previously induced disappointment and grumbling and a roll of the eyes with a sigh. But it seems crass to complain this year. This weather is perfect. And there is still plenty of consumption of local community produce to be savoured.

sc06a

I don’t know if supporting the South Coast economy has ever been so tasty. The one exception was – alas – fish and chips, a result of many of the better venues being closed on a Monday in March. But there was the Mexican brunch bowl at Mossy Point, the caramel fudge and coffee in Moruya and – probably the piece de resistance of feeling worthy and eating well – home-cooked wholesomeness and other takeaway from the farmers markets also in Moruya.

The markets were small but popular, a place very much for locals to gather and update one another on the latest news and gossip. They were also attuned to market protocols, forming orderly queues with wicker baskets as they awaited the 3pm opening bell. Twenty minutes later and most of the fresh stuff had sold out, but we managed to retrieve a medley of locally grown seasonal vegetables, some swordfish, crusty bread and a dairy product or two for me to bring home to go on a scone or three.

sc08

I can’t say our market-supplied barbecue that night was a traditional Aussie bloke-themed methane-heavy slimy snag and slab of steak celebration. But it felt good and tasted even better. Refined even. Setting up another classy evening of exemplary three-way snooker (Tuross Rules).

Which was again better than the golf that day. Looking for something to do we came across a whole nine holes to ourselves. It quickly became clear why, the course pretty basic and unkempt in places, plagued by an infestation of mosquitoes. These had apparently emerged post fire and rain, proof that not all of nature’s recovery is especially welcome. At the course boundary, fire had penetrated the forest and the relatively low fee to have a course and a million mozzies to ourselves didn’t seem such an injustice after all.

sc07

You see, it’s quite a divergent experience down on the South Coast. Like chalk and cheese. Sunshine and rain. Go Fund Me and bog-roll violence. So much of it looks and feels as good as ever. Life seems normal. Better even given the incredible swathe of green pasture now smothering the fields. And then your mind comes back to that saying I heard before: the great green cover up.

And you drive, under bucketloads of rain, through Mogo once more with its scattering of crumpled buildings. Towards and into the edges of Batemans Bay, where the forest has scorched down to its very edge and looks like it is struggling to recover. You get a sense of where the fire was most ferocious; green shoots are harder to come by. One side of the road up Clyde Mountain looks normal, the other decimated.

sc09

You enter Braidwood to support that economy, knowing that it would be near impossible to convince an overseas visitor that this was in the grip of drought, primed to borrow water from Canberra while being shrouded in smoke for months on end. You shelter with hot coffee and sense BlazeAid nomads taking a well-earned day off. You espy a generous supply of toilet paper in the café bathroom; and briefly a wicked thought enters your mind. But the sunshine wins out, the goodness, the heart. Much like it is doing, much like it will do again, down on the South Coast.

Australia Driving Food & Drink Green Bogey
— 1 Comment

The doorstep

A habit of mine is to go for a walk somewhere every day of the week. Or at least try to, even if this is a little amble to the shops or a trudge through puddles in a park. It’s a habit easily fed in Canberra, where leafy suburbia intermingles with random patches of bushland and sprawling hilltop reserves, usually rising under big blue skies. I can walk out of my door and be in any number of spots that hardly feel as though they are in the middle of a city: trees and birds and kangaroos and a horizon of mountain wilderness espied in the west.

This habit bordering on obsession can become a little harder in the UK, which is surprising when you consider all the public footpaths and country lanes and bridleways and muddy fields marked on an Ordnance Survey map. British cities are denser and usually grimier and most definitely wetter, meaning a walk from the doorstep often requires a little deeper investigation, a tad more imagination, and a dose of good luck. Like finding the slightly cottagey lanes of Compton Vale in Plymouth or clumps of woodland on a steep highway embankment, or the spooky cemeteries of Janners past.

Of course, with a car the options open up exponentially, but so too do the speed cameras and the filter lanes and the traffic lights and the roundabouts clogged with cars rarely indicating. It can be a bit of a chore to get out of Plymouth for a walk, but once you make it the world is pretty much your oyster. Until the next village with a parade of speed bumps and cattle grids.

hm07

The roundabout at Roborough is a significant, welcome milestone in the escape from Plymouth; a conduit between giant superstores and industrial estates and the rambling wilds and shady valleys of Dartmoor National Park. This is Plymouth’s backyard and, once you get there, a fairly quiet one away from the usual honeypots and ice cream traps.

Even on a sunny Saturday – admittedly a bracingly cold Saturday for early May – the moor was more than ample to soak up the extra ramblers and cyclists and trippers tripping on cream teas. This includes an additional fellow in young Leo, who was adamant he was coming with us for a walk and, of course, ended up being carried the whole way. Kids, huh?!

hm01

The walk near Princetown felt a far cry from the city, all empty and remote, a desolate bleakness intensified by the icy wind casting sun and cloud patterns upon the barren brown moors. Yet here civilisation creeps in, or at least tries for a while. The solitary austere brick structure of Nun’s Cross Farm stands resolute, providing a little shelter in the lee of the wind to tame Leo’s hair. Rather than a blight on the landscape, it seems to fit, offering as much a representation of life on the moor as ponies and tumbling clusters of granite…

hm02

…And clotted cream teas. After such an frigid walk can there be anything more delightful than a log fire, buttery scones, pots of tea and the usual trimmings? It’s not like I planned the walk around this or anything, it just happened to be nearby, and we were hungry, and well… There is only so much rugged emptiness one can take. What’s the point of walking if you can’t get to enjoy it?!

hm03

———————————————–

Back through that roundabout at Roborough within the city of Plymouth, there is a pocket of countryside on the banks of the Plym, wedged between the Devon Expressway and the South Hams Tractortrack. It’s ideal for a pre-dinner stroll or – better still – post-dinner, when Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Eastenders zap the brain cells of millions of devoted followers. Saltram is a gracious property boasting copious, succulent Devonian land, including plenty of woodland pockets in which Mr Darcy can brood.

hm04

Saltram has its trails but is not without its trials. First off, National Trust property, which means the good people of busybody parkingland can’t wait to rob you of gold. For all the wonderful things the National Trust provides, it all seems a little exorbitant to me…I can’t help but feel some of the charges are siphoned off to some sycophantic Daily Telegraph fundraiser to install the natural heir to Churchill as PM. That dog from the TV ads.

The other thing with Saltram is that it takes a circuitous effort to reach by car, navigating a manic roundabout whose lanes disappear into a wormhole, and then a slip lane clogged with cars turning into Lidl for a pint of milk or 60 inch flat screen. Such is the travail of the journey, the prospect of digging into your life savings to park, and – should you mistime – the odorous tidal pong of the River Plym, that Saltram can prove a frustrating affair.

hm06Or it can be wonderful, arriving a little before rush-hour and just after the parking attendant has gone home. This yields a quiet fist pump of glee and a good mood in which to walk the parklands. Along the river, the tide is high and holding on, and clouds part to release the sun. Forget the roar of traffic along the Embankment, and the mould-tinged sails of Sainsburys, and focus instead on the flourishing green of the woods and bounteous swathes of wild garlic. Embrace the chirping birds and walk with the hope of encountering a deer.

hm05

hm08Look down upon manicured fields and be thankful that this is indeed upon your doorstep. A doorstep in which the land and sea meets, producing conditions that are often frustrating but usually fruitful. Beyond the chav-filled potholes of the city, a land of strawberries and cream or raspberries and cream or just cream goddammit.

A daily walk is an obsession not for the air, nor for the nature, nor for the killing of time in a rather pleasant way. A daily walk is the only way I can try to keep that goddam luscious cream off!

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking
— 1 Comment

It’s the final Cornwall

We’re still in November so technically it was only last month that I was finishing up on my latest quest to figure out what the heck is going on in supposedly Great Britain and – as usual – deciding the only way to deal with such complex cognitive conundrums was with a walk in the country and a nice bit of tea and cake. In fact, I’m sure a wedge of Victoria Sponge could prove wonders in finding a way through the impasse of flipstops and backjocks and frictionless pants or whatever else passes for titillating games within the Eton Old Boys Society these days. Just don’t mention ze Pumpernickel.

There’s a kind of car-crash fascination watching from afar as developments in Britain either a) lead to an apocalyptic meltdown in which some Love Island loser eats the bones of leftover pigeons to provide entertainment on the Boris Broadcasting Copulation or b) unicorns glide over abundant fields of plenty showering golden poo onto the NHS. I’m an optimist though…at least in thinking that my occasionally hard-earned Aussie dollar should go a bit further when I next visit.

And when I return will I again find peak brilliance that was my final full day in the southwest of England? One can hope so, as this is a landscape hardy and resistant to change, holding steadfast for now against the Atlantic, even if there are cliff edges around every corner.

final_03

Will the coffee get better? I doubt it. Because, you know, Costa has apparently perfected the flat white so how can you improve upon perfection? Bahahahahahahaha. Seeing masses of everyone gathered within every single Costa (and similar popular coffee-related establishments) provides an indicator of how simple it is for millions of people to be duped. But then if you do not look outward, do not expose yourself to difference, how could you know any better?

Anyway, back to my last day in Cornwall. There was some looking outward wth coffee over Watergate Bay near Newquay. It was an acceptable enough brew, but the main purpose was to get inside the Watergate Bay Hotel and take advantage of the view from the deck. A panorama of sweeping golden sand and crystal blue surf under a wonderful cloudless sky. Why would I ever leave?

final_01

While life was rather fine here, a little up the coast road comes the view to win them all. You know, I was thinking that this spot has got to be up there with some of the world’s greatest reveals. Like that first glimpse of the Opera House or the initial peer down into the Grand Canyon. Okay, maybe one of Britain’s greatest reveals, but I definitely think it’s not out of place in some Lonely Planet list of things for people to put on Instagram that features a glamorous blonde chick who is supposedly a traveller and social media influencer dangling off a cliff in the foreground.

This place is Bedruthan Steps, best Instagrammed (and yes, I did), when the tide is out.

final_02

With waters receding the scale of this magnificent stretch of coast is more pronounced, as various rocky lumps and creviced cliffs tower over tiny human specks milling about in the acres of sand. And from upon high, an appreciation of the clarity of the sea and the lines formed from each set of waves rolling in. Here, the irresistible force of nature is immense.

final_04

For those human specks there is an ankle-sapping plunge to the beach, should you be so inclined. On this occasion, my feet instead turned tail and ended up at the café, a consequence as inevitable as David Cameron hiding in a shed to eat pork scratchings. Famous baked potatoes in the National Trust cottage are worth the trip alone, vying for attention with the inevitable cream tea. I had been in the UK for around eight weeks now and – to be honest – I had probably had enough clotted cream to last a year. So baked potato it was. Followed by a few leftovers from a cream tea.

final_05

I don’t like food waste. Neither does Rick Stein, I imagine, because I’m sure the innards of a red mullet can prove a rather fine base for a Bouillabaisse. Travelling up the coast from Bedruthan there’s a point at which you enter the forcefield of greater Padstow and its outlying villages and bays. That point is literally Trevose Head. It’s a point I have never been to and today was, well, no exception.

It’s always good to have some untouched Cornwall in reserve for next time, but I did get a little closer to that point with a walk out from Harlyn Bay. This presented yet another expanse of sand laid out against a deep blue sea and rolling green fields, largely empty in the second week of October.

final_06

The coastline here is a little less gargantuan than down the road and the walking is pretty simple going, barring a strong headwind from the ocean. It doesn’t take too long to round a headland at the western end of the bay and sight Trevose Head and the Padstow lifeboat station nestled in one of its nooks. The lifeboat station is another common sight on social media, possibly with a blonde chick staring out into the distance as clear waters and golden sands glow in the background. Today it remained a sight from afar, but I was happy to gaze over the beautiful Mother Ivey’s Bay as a culmination for the day.

final_07

Indeed, a culmination for Cornwall and for the Southwest of England again. It took a while to get there but every step, every sight, every word, and every cream tea was worth it. Visions will linger from this last day and the many moments that led up to this point. Simple visions of sun and sand, sea and land, and undying fondness for a jutting out bit of a rocky island askance in a confused ocean.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking
— Leave a Comment

Sconeage-in-Roseland

One week in to Southwest England and I had not crossed the Tamar. Perhaps I was in the minority in light of Poldark-mania and endless instygrams that all look exactly the same of Pedn Vounder Beach boasting – shock horror – fine golden sands and blue crystal waters. There is a little smug middle-aged part of me that wants to scream out “I WENT TO THESE PLACES BEFORE THEY BECAME ALL THE RAGE ON SOCIAL MEDIA!” (and also, don’t go at high tide and expect to see what was on your smartphone you idiot). But it’s all good for the economy I guess.

Subsequently I have decided to blame any traffic jam, parking difficulty, or disappointment in Cornwall on Poldark. Bloody prat. Though happily – discounting a bit of congestion through St. Austell and around Charlestown harbour – mutterings of his name were at a minimum on a day with Mum around the Roseland Peninsula.

Roseland is so tucked away, so riddled with a network of unfathomable country lanes, so lacking a town of any real size, that even I have rarely visited. So today, beyond Portloe, was all new. And – despite it being a Sunday – reasonably subdued.

First stop, was Carne Beach, down by the water from Veryan-in-Roseland. While lacking the spectacle of places on the north coast (and, of course, Pedn Vounder out west), this offered a rather ambient setting, sheltered by the rolling green hills and lapped gently by the sea. A receding tide provided increasing space for only a handful of people. Poldark wuz not ere.

rose_02

With milky sunshine and barely a breath of wind, I decided to do the possibly unthinkable and dip my toes in the water. I’d say it was tolerable for a minute or so, but this was sufficient for walking along the fringe between sand and sea to the end of the beach. A practice I do ad nauseum in Australia and pleasing to know I can repeat here.

rose_03

Beyond the beach, the coast path of course winds its way up hill and down dale. Or up mountain and down cove. Mum and I took a wander east towards Nare Head which apparently rises 300 feet above the bay. Navigating cow pats and abundant blackberries (is there a relationship between the two?), we didn’t make the headland but found some suitable scenery that would satisfy Mr Poldark and his legion of fans.

rose_01

A limitation – if you can call it that – with Carne Beach is that it lacks a good pub or café for lunch. After a week of taking sandwiches everywhere and being annoyed at coming across rich pastry treats and decadent cakes, the day we come empty-handed, nothing. So we moved onto Portscatho, the big smoke.

Portscatho contained the archetypal Cornish harbour, obligatory abundance of bunting, whitewashed cottages and peppering of well-heeled, boaty types milling around town. The one pub was popular to lounge outside and sup a pint of Tribute, the nearby Spar selling everything from pasties to postcards to peas. We found a café serving sandwiches, jacket potatoes, salads and the like. And with an inevitability matched by that of Pedn Vounder being on Instagram next time I look, we had a cream tea lunch. Naturally-in-Roseland.

rose_04

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking
— Leave a Comment

Hope for blue

Devon, oh Devon. Rolling hills, white fluffy clouds in a blue sky, white fluffy sheep in a green field, the deep blue sea shimmering in a haze of paradise. Oh yes, the picture-perfect Devon of custard cans. Such were my thoughts on the first day back here as gales lashed rain sideways upon a window in gritty Plymouth city, the smell of roast dinner the only comfort. It’s good to be back.

That stormy day has been the exception rather than the rule but, while there have been some blessed interludes, the predominant feature has been cloud. Cloud and cream and catch ups and cars to get used to ferrying family and escaping Emmerdale.

Like practically everyone else in this sceptred isle I have been paying frequent visits to the BBC Weather website, analysing the hourly chance of sunshine breaking through the milky clouds and estimating with a little skill, experience, and luck, where the gaps could emerge. And the success rate hasn’t been so bad.

hope01

Noss Mayo is a reliable friend. I know its lanes and paths well – meandering up past happy farms, coursing loftily above the sea, before weaving down underneath a green canopy as jaunty boats upon the Yealm begin to break through. I know where to crawl tentatively around which corners of single-track lane to avoid a head-on crash. I know sunny spells can be more likely to emerge here. And I know where to park and where not to.

hope02

Well, I thought I did, unless there is a fete on and the compact car park becomes overwhelmed to the extent that a complex series of nine point turns on a 20% gradient is required to squeeze in next to a wall against which you can’t open the door necessitating an undignified scramble over the passenger seat. I guess ferret racing, wellie throwing, and cake tasting is an enduringly popular attraction in Devon.

Despite this bank holiday anomaly, the rest of Noss was as pleasing as ever. Happy farms, lofty sea views, jaunty boats, that kind of thing. The sun even broke through. Customarily, I had half a pint at the end but – given things had been slightly awry from the start – made a controversial visit to The Swan rather than The Ship. From where that time-honoured tradition of watching unknowingly parked cars become submerged by the rising tide could play out.

hope03

After Noss Mayo, greyness came and went for much of the week and my continued scrutiny of the BBC Weather page started to wane as it became clear that they didn’t really know what was going on. The supposed sunny mornings were cloudy, cloudy afternoons became bright, and once in a while shorts might have been tolerable in the same day that you were wearing a fleece and long trousers and struggling to see through drizzle.

In an effort to get out with the sun and conveniently avoid a pile of tripe being served up in The Woolpack, an evening on Dartmoor produced a fine end to an otherwise dull day. The drive itself proved an adventure in threading a car through lanes hemmed in by characteristic ten-foot-high hedgerows on roads I did not now. Disorientation is never far away. Happily, I ended up on Harford Moor Gate, an area I had never previously accessed and one which led to a yomp over open moorland burnished golden by the lowering sun.

hope04

I set out for a random tor in the distance with the nebulous but entirely logical aim of seeing what was over the other side. Avoiding anguished cow bellows and boggy hollows, it turned out the other side had more open moorland and little else. On a whim, I headed for another pile of rocks a few hundred metres south. And there it was, the view of South Devon and its patchwork fading in the dying light.

hope05

The sun was heading back into a band of grey on the western horizon, but before it did I managed to make it back to my first tor to say farewell. Farewell again.

hope06

The by now notorious BBC Weather page continued to largely offer the ambiguous white cloud symbol. Always a few days into the future, perhaps some sun. Always offering a little hope. And finally delivering.

Still in the school summer holidays I feared Hope Cove in the South Hams would be largely inaccessible. Farmers would have seen the blue sky and decided to secretly annoy everyone by undertaking essential tractor on road affairs. Grockles would be flocking to car parks, caravans would be wedged between quaint red post boxes and quaint red phone boxes, kids and dogs would be running amok in a melange of buckets, balls and bowls of water that I always trip over. How, exactly, is the tranquillity?

But I was surprised. We got a park. We got a spot on the small beach cove. We got an ice cream. And we got a blue sky that was very comfortable for shorts and a walk along the South West Coast Path. That tranquillity? It’s pretty fine thanks.

hope07

Leaving the bubbling hubbub of Hope behind, I headed up towards Bolt Tail for magical views back to town and over the sapphire calm of the bay. There is little that is more joyous than traipsing on the trails of the coast path when it is like this. Nowhere in the world.

hope08

hope10

For now, here was Devon. Devon, oh Devon. Rolling hills, white fluffy clouds in a blue sky, white fluffy sheep in a green field, the deep blue sea shimmering in a haze of paradise. Oh yes, the picture-perfect Devon of custard cans. Such were my thoughts surrounded by hope. It’s good to be back.

 

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking
— Leave a Comment

Cream days at the hotel existence

I had spent almost two weeks overseas before making it officially home. While Bristol Airport provided little pockets of Englishness (M&S pork pie, terrible latte from Costa), and the impressive one pound Falcon Stagecoach crossed borders into luscious Devon, it wasn’t until the Sainsbury sails of Marsh Mills emerged in sight that I truly felt back home. Plymouth.

hm01It’s funny because arriving here doesn’t particularly feel exciting or exotic or out of the ordinary. But it was a moment I had longed for; I suspect precisely because it doesn’t feel exciting or exotic or out of the ordinary. I say this despite a diversion to a new coach station, the inevitable addition of more Greggs in town, and some positive additions to family structure. But at the heart of it, the connection with home yields a familiarity that is the very essence of comfort and, for the most part, happiness.

hm02Happiness is that first bite of scone with jam with clotted cream. OH. MY. GOD. Obviously this happened the day immediately after my arrival at the coach station. And it was in a new location. Cardinham Woods in Cornwall, where there was plenty of wooded green to soothe the mind, Snakes and Owls and Gruffalo to find, and deliciousness of a kind, which is unmatched anywhere on earth.

hm03

hm04Happiness is going to see a Hoe, and a very familiar one at that. That walk that I have walked five hundred times and I will walk five hundred more. Plymouth Sound constant companion by my side, the stripes of Smeaton’s Tower a backdrop to proper footy kick abouts and OAPs parked up, gazing out to ocean as they lick languidly away at their Miss Whippys. For me, it’s coffee in the sun by the Sound; shit coffee but sun and the Sound.

hm06Happiness is going to see Sarah, who is definitely not a hoe, but a very fine woman who I am hugely in love with. I have no idea who Sarah is, but she makes bloody good pasties. So much so that any other pasty is now disappointing. It means a trip to Looe, an adventure in trying to find a car park, an effort of restraining expletives as grockles spill aimlessly over the roads and flock to inferior pasty chain stores. There is achievement to be felt, reward to be had, and attention still needed to protect incredible nuggets of pastry from seagulls as undiscerning as the grockles.

Pasties are Cornwall, but Cornwall is more than pasties, as you can find out here!

hm07Meanwhile, have I mentioned the accessibility of cream teas at home? That makes me happy. Cream teas in Devon that are not Devonshire teas in Cremorne. Another quest, another discovery, this time at the Fox Tor Cafe in Princetown. It’s not much to look at – and weekends bring out an excess of Lycra – but the buttery scones are utterly Devonly divine. And the jam and cream ain’t so bad either.

hm08Happiness is not often a product of the English weather. But expectations are so, so low that you cannot fail to smile when the forecast is for light cloud and a top of nineteen degrees. Get a bank holiday weekend when the temperature builds under blue skies and you’ll find everyone turns mildly, wildly delirious. Blackened charcoal sausage is the staple food source, evenings out are comfortable and you begin to think, hmm maybe this isn’t so bad after all. Followed by the inevitable if only it could be like this all the time. These are the words uttered outside waterside pubs, along the promenades, within the leafy parks and wedged between giant hedges as countryside spills down to coast.

hm09

It has to rain sometime though. To grow grass, to colour those fields the most soothing shade of green. To make the cows happy and produce the very best cream. A landscape you criss-cross all the way to Fingle Bridge on the eastern side of Dartmoor. Where lush wooded riverside offers the picture perfect snap of Devon. Even if the scones turn out a little stale and insipid.

hm10

But Devon is far more then Devonshire Teas or – god forbid – that brand of fatty processed meat that they sell in the deli counter in Coles. Devon is more a fine, aged Serrano in the ham stakes, as you might find out here!

hm11For all its tea-based pleasures and intricacies, Devon and Cornwall – and England and the rest of the UK – is not, it must be oft said with an eye roll thrown in, accomplished in the art of coffee. But there are glimmers of hope; hope that possibly makes you think hmm maybe this isn’t so bad after all. Followed by the inevitable if only it could be like this all the time. These are the words uttered inside my head as I sup on a reasonable flat white among the glistening cobbles and boats of Plymouth’s Barbican.

hm12Happiness is the aspiration pushed by marketers at Morrisons and Sainsburys and Tesco and, yes, Aldi. The Aldi happiness is more a utilitarian, Germanic form of pleasure, and certainly hard to pinpoint at 3:30pm on a Sunday afternoon, before the stores close in a quaint but annoying reminder that Sunday used to be a day of rest. These are the temples of a kid in a candy shop or, um, actually a grown man in a candy shop. For every reliable revisit of a Double Decker there is a new discovery or a forgotten one rediscovered. Like Wispa bites, and Digestive cake bars, and more things contributing to the presence of salted caramel as a major food group. And then I see the dairy aisle and the copious supply of clotted cream, and I feel a bit sad.

Sad that I am leaving tomorrow, sad that I am leaving Plymouth, Devon, Cornwall and – eventually – the UK. Again. More than pasties and green fields and hoes and chavs and freakish warm days and even more than the clotted cream, sad to be leaving behind those who are linked by blood and love and a shared fondness of some plain old cake with a lump of tooth-rotting fruit and heart-shattering congealed cow milk on top.

But let us not dwell on such sadness, because we can squeeze in a little more happy and let that linger in our minds and our hearts. The train isn’t until three and there is a final family visit to the Fox Tor Cafe to be had…

hm13

 

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey