To The End Of Great Britain

We stayed at Holywell Bay in Cornwall for 3 nights in a caravan park, so it felt a little like we were going camping. We spent Saturday seeing most of the sights around the Southern end of Cornwall including Land's End.

Our first stop for the day though was to take some pictures of St Michael's Mount for Mum because she did want to see Mont St Michel in Normandy, France, but it was too far out of our way so we didn't get there. St Michael's Mount dates back to 495 (AD) and was used as a trading port. It became a thriving religious centre after fisherman claimed to have seen an apparition of the Archangel St Michael. It was a very hazy morning and from one side you could hardly see the island fortress. It wasn't as spectacular as Mont St Michel but it did look rather interesting. Mick wanted to go out, but we had so many things to try and fit into the day we thought we had better not. St Michael's Mount was given to the Benedictine monks of Mont St Michel in France after the Norman Conquest. To read more about how the 2 are connected go here or to one of the links above.

You can see St Michael's Mount from Penzance, which was our next stop - home of the pirates! Leilani was busy helping Mario look out the window for pirates and called out when she saw a skull and cross-bones!

{Local Pool on the Beach}

From Penzance we drove onto Mousehole. Yes it's called Mousehole.... not just this shop but the town! You actually pronounce it as Mow-zel (but as if you would!) and our friend Janet grew up here. It is another lovely little fishing village with odd shaped houses and narrow roads. We had a nice walk around the town here and enjoyed the sunshine, it was cool but there was hardly any wind - which you would expect being by the water.

It's not every day you see a 3 wheeler out taking a joy ride through the narrow streets of Mousehole (and yes, this road is 2-way!)

{Check out Emily in this photo! You may need to enlarge - she is so funny this girl!}

{Town of Mousehole}

{More sand... the pirates obviously knew what a real beach was.... I wonder if they carted it here as part of their treasure!!}

After a few monkey swings we were back in the car and on our way to Land's End. (All these places are in the very South-West of Cornwall, and really quite close to each other - so it was a nice day out).

So I have to admit that when Mick first said (ages ago) that we really should go to Penzance and Land's End (which sounded a lot more like Lanzen at the time) I had no idea that there was actually a place called Land's End and it was THE Land's End! I caught on pretty quickly but at first I just thought he was talking about a couple of pirate towns which both had the letter Z in them! I really liked Land's End and as soon as you got out of the car you had that feeling like you were somewhere kinda cool! Like at the top of Mount Wellington or down at South Port looking into the wild ocean, knowing that Antarctica is the next piece of land out there! The wind was very strong in places here but we all really liked Land's End.

While we were here, a runner came in who had just completed the John O'Groats to Land's End track (which is the longest distance between two points on the British mainland). So that was kinda cool - it probably took him about 2 weeks so he looked pretty happy! We got to watch this 'purple hippy band' welcome him in too! I love seeing the ocean blend into the sky.

{Check out Emily's face in this one - she looked like this in most of the photos we took at Land's End... this is the face they put on when they are singing to Michael Jackson - I think they are trying to be cool or something.... I'm not really sure!}

We pretty much went right around the west tip or Cornwall, down the east side and back up the west through St. Ives to Newquay where Holywell bay is. The scenery was impressive at times.

Here's a map of Cornwall...