Grand Tour of England Day 14

We said goodbye to Jan and John after a lovely 2 nights in their drive. Who knows when we might meet again as we are so far away geographically and they don’t travel. John’s nickname for us 35 years ago was “The Sporting Campbells” and he said it still held which was very kind.

We drove to the Lost Gardens of Heligan. A family owned the estate for over 400 years but the house was rented out after WW1 and eventually the gardens were lost to nature. In 1990 work started to find out what had happened to the gardens and restoration work began.

Sadly in my opinion the place has been a victim of its own success. The gardens were lovely but the walks were overcrowded despite timed tickets and the ferns and palms and walks were not much different from many other gardens here and in west of Scotland. There were adventure playgrounds, shops, cafes and crowds of coughing people. At £35 not nearly as good value as Glendurgan or Powis. It was pleasant but I made the mistake of having a romantic ideal in my head so I was disappointed. The Blip is a collage of Heligan.

We crossed the Tamar at Plymouth into Devon, after finding diesel at 127.8 at St Austell. The roads to our present little site at East Prawle were a nightmare - slow, narrow, steep, twisty and busy. Eventually we found it and we can just spot the sea across a field. Luckily we met the Morrison’s lorry at a wider spot.

Our plan had been to take a walk tomorrow on the coastal path but the forecast is 80% chance of rain so we might be forced to have a lazy day reading our books. Maybe well deserved after 2 weeks of being good tourists.

John Bercow - not really a surprise