Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:14 pm
Fantastic holiday.....thanks for sharing that.
Car ferry and Daphne du Maurier's house (right) on the Fowey river
On day two of the holiday I spent a lazy morning taking a boat trip on the Fowey River and then, after a mid-day meal, walked up to Gribben Head. I was a mite disappointed to find that on this occasion the green headland appeared very ordinary and unthreatening. About a dozen tourists were there when I arrived, wandering around the daymarker, or standing looking out over the sea cliffs. I regarded them with some degree of scorn (not to say, hostility), a leftover from the days when Rohan and I regarded tourists and daytrippers as feeble imitations of authentic footslogging travellers- like ourselves. Judging by their clothes, they had come the easy way - by road – and parked down in the valley near the big house at Menabilly Barton (If you are a Daphne du Maurier fan or like classic films or are just of a certain age, you will know this house. It is the model for ‘Mandeley’ in ‘Rebecca’ – the haunt of the wicked Mrs Danvers).
The long grass that Rohan, Ashley and I had camped in thirty years previously (then so high that it had reached two-thirds the way up the side of the tents) was now cropped short by cattle. The ground beneath it, though, was just as hummocky. I sat myself down by the daymarker to eat my lunch and tried to pick out exactly where I had pitched my tent back in the 1980s, and where at two o’clock in the morning I had suddenly thrown myself down hard on the ground to avoid the bullets.
On that earlier occasion, I wasn't getting much sleep. The ground was so uncomfortable to lie on that all I could do was toss and turn and work myself into a bad temper. I could hear Rohan suffering likewise about ten yards away in his own tent. Ashley claimed that he had dropped off to sleep at about one o’clock and hadn’t woken. (But you can ignore this. We ignored most things that Ash said. He was a great bloke, but lived in a teenage world entirely of his own making.) We had searched hard for a better camping spot nearby but the top of Gribben Head was the best we could find.
And that, also, was bothering me. Earlier that evening, as we had passed through Fowey, I’d glanced casually at poster in a shop window. I didn’t read all the details but it seemed that the following day there was going to be a local celebration. Three-hundred years earlier, something remarkable had happened on the clifftops near sleepy little Fowey and whatever it was, it was dramatic enough for the council to want to commemorate the it with a civic event...
...up on Gribben Head...!
...at nine o’clock the following morning. Groan!
We hadn’t slept well for several nights, and I was desperate for a lie-in. The last thing I wanted was to be awakened in my tent at first light by some municipal busybody demanding that we vacate the site to make way for his worship the mayor and a gaggle of local dignitaries. As I shifted around in my sleeping bag trying to avoid the various lumps of mother earth that were sticking into me, I thought about how annoying this was going to be and what choice remarks I had to offer this imagined intruder the next morning.
By midnight, even the sound of the waves on the rocks was beginning to annoy me. By one o’clock I was in a right state of exasperation. By two, my world had shrunk down to the single persistent fact of unrelieved discomfort. I sat up. My torch battery was almost dead, so I couldn’t read. There was no food in the tent. I unzipped the entrance, struggled into some clothes and headed off for the cliff tops. A few yards from the tent, I caught my foot between two grass tussocks, fell and twisted my ankle painfully.
That was it! I was now in a major grumpfest. I hobbled the rest of the way to the cliffs and yelled at the Atlantic. I was too far gone to care whether I was disturbing the others or not. I took off my boots, then sat down and dedicated the next half-an-hour to feeling sorry for myself.
It was while I was nursing my ankle on a rock that I first registered the noise of distant engines. Sounds travel far up here on the clifftops on a clear night. A number of vehicles were making their way along the valley road - revving excessively, I thought. One of them crunched its gears rather loudly. I heard a raised voice or two, but the noise was quickly muffled away behind the bulk of a hill. It was probably some local lads who’d been out binge drinking, I thought - and out to kill themselves one way or another. I thought no more about it and went back to massaging my ankle.
The sound of the car had diverted my thoughts away from my own discomforts and my bad mood had began to subside. In a few more minutes I was beginning to feel relaxed and even a little sleepy. I stood up, stretched and began limping back towards the tent. It was then that I heard the sound of vehicles once more, but much closer this time. Their engines heaved as they bounced up the slope and over the turf. The next moment, three pairs of headlights came over the crest of the hill and started careering all over the headland. Two of the vehicles were Land Rovers for sure. I couldn't make out the third. There were several loud inebriated shouts and lots of laughter. F****, I thought, they were heading straight for the long grass and our small bivvy tents which were hidden among it. I saw Rohan his head out of the tent entrace. There was no sign of Ashley. What was the best thing to do? Stand in the headlights and let them know we were here or keep out of sight in the hope that they would just p1ss off and go away?
I didn’t get to make that decision because the next thing I knew several shots rang out. Then several more. I dropped to the ground. It sounded like rifle fire - though I'm no expert on that. Someone else was shooting off with what sounded like an air pellet gun.
The Land Rovers were careering around the headland at speed, apparently out of any rational control. I couldn’t see much of what was happening but to judge by their voices and their driving, these guys were totally wrecked. Several more shots were fired. There were more drunken voices, loud shouts and jeering. Suddenly one of the vehicles swerved directly towards me and must have passed by within about ten yards of where I lay.
There were yet more shots. A couple of bullets pinged off the side of the daymarker. Down in the grass I couldn’t make any sense of what was happening. Everything was in confusion. Engines complained and roared, gears crashed more than once, headlights bounced around like searchlights, and the shouting got louder. Shots came in volleys of two or three - and then there was the sound of my own thoughts running furiously through my head. How the hell these idiots didn’t hit one another – or one of us, I don’t know.
The vehicles stopped suddenly. For a second I wondered if we were going to have to confront them one way or another. Then, a huge row broke out. I could hear their voices more clearly now. There must have been five or six of them, all with strong West Country accents – local lads by the sound of it. They had probably came up here with some confused notions of shooting rabbits. From the way they had started shouting angriy at one another, I was there was going to be some almighty punch-up. Instead, suddenly, the engines came back to life. Headlights swung right and left and the n disappeared back down the hill the way they had come. Rohan looked over at me, grunted and withdrew his head back into his tent. I got up and crawled back into mine. There was still no sign of Ashley. We didn’t speak about it until the next morning.
We didn't emerge from, our tents, with stiff muscles and bleary eyes until about eleven o'clock. One or two backpackers and dog-walkers were out and about on the path, but there was no sign of with a mayor or his corporation, and no obvious commemoration of that famous unknown event. That puzzled me but I wasn't about to complain.
I didn’t find out about that until a couple of days later when I dropped into a tourist information office and asked. The assistant didn't know anything about it, but then a colleague of hers remembered. Apparently there had been a big shindig up on The Gribben that morning - but a year previously. Whatever I had read in the poster it was history. I'm often late for things but this is something of a record.
Polkerris beach, near Gribben Head
Coastal Path near Parr Sands
Coastal path
A Cornish Hedge, is not really a hedge at all, but two parallel walls filled with earth and planted with shrubs on top. Cornish hedges are built of flat stones which are arranged vertically. They were originally designed to perform two vital tasks: to keep the cattle from falling over the cliffs and to deter Viking raiders. And they are very effective. I've never seen falling cattle in Cornwall and I've never been troubled by Vikings.
On the morning of day three of the holiday I packed my gear, said goodbye to the landlady of the B&B, got on the bike and headed off deeper into the West Country. I was planning on travelling down to Penzance and Porthcurno and then on down to Sennan Cove and Land’s End, the most Westerly point in mainland England. I didn’t have any particular reason to go to Land’s End except that… well… it was Land’s End and it felt like a suitable way to end the holiday. But first I was heading off to a village near Falmouth to visit a friend. I was in a good mood when I set out, but that soon changed. It had rained in the night and the roads were noticeably greasy. As the morning wore on, the skies turned a very dull shade of grey and a fine drizzle settled in on the world. Colourful, romantic Cornwall metamorphosed into a miserable land of dull fields and dismal thoughts.
I had an inkling that something notable would happen - I just knew it! But it wasn't until I was passing through Truro that it hit. I was filtering down between two wide lanes of traffic. That I remember. Up ahead a car was turning across my lane at a junction. I braked gently, and without warning, the back tyre slid out straight out from under me. The bike went down with a crash on its right-hand side. I’d decked it on a patch of diesel. I was so busy watching for cars pulling out across me as I filtered down between them that I hadn’t seen it. It was a small patch, no more than a metre long. If I had been going faster, my back wheel might have recovered more quickly and saved the spill.
But I was lucky. I wasn’t hurt at all, not even slightly bruised, though my lid did take a bit of a bounce off the tarmac. As for the bike, the right-hand fairing uppers were cracked; the plastic lens on my front right indicator was smashed to pieces, and the end of my back brake lever was broken off. I’d been between two vehicles when I came down but because of the width of the lanes I hadn’t come into contact with either of them. That was lucky! Another claim against my insurance, and I would have had to nick the crown jewels to pay for my premium next year. In any case, the damage to the bike, I reckon, comes to about £500, the same as the excess on my insurance.
When it had fallen, the Daytona had pinned my foot the road. The chap who had turned across in front of me pulled over, and he and another motorist helped to pick the bike up. When I checked her over, everything appeared to be working. Though the lens was smashed on the front indicator, the bulb and electrics remained functional (so I was still legal to ride). There was still enough of the foot-plate left on the lever to operate the back brake, if need be. But what the hell! Who needs a back brake anyway? On the Daytona, the front brake is phenomenal, but the back...? It will hold you steady for a hill start - just - but when you are moving, you might as well whistle.
I got to my friend’s house without any trouble, and then immediately came down with another overnight fever. I'd been planning to stay with her only for a couple of hours, but by the time I arrived, I was so fluey again that she offered to put me up for the night and plied me with endless mugs of lemon and honey, for which I was grateful.
Logan's rock
The next day, I was still thick with flu but feeling a little better, so carried on down to Porthcurno. Porthcurno is famous for two things: Logan’s Rock, a long headland that was once the site of an Iron Age community, and the Minack Theatre. The Minack is one of my very favourite places. It is an outdoor theatre, carved into the side of the cliffs between the wars by Rowena Cade, a local spinster who lived on the headland. It is pure, unadulterated fantasy. I’ve seen many evening performances here, some good, some passable, but in this magical place with the setting sun as a backdrop to the stage the experience is always special. When I visited this time the season was over, and there were no more performances for the year, I paid to go in anyway just to get a look the theatre itself.
Enough! Here’s some pics.
Minack theatre
Minack theatre
Part of the stage at the Minack
Fishermen on the rocks at Minack Head
