Tag: Marazion

A Grockle’s Eye View of Cornwall 11: The End of the St Michaels Mount Day

Concluding my account of the day at St Michael’s Mount as we near the end of my series about my visit to Cornwall.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my recent visit to Cornwall. This post completes the day at St Michael’s Mount, leaving me with a post to do about the journey home and finally a page from which all the posts about this trip can be accessed. The fact that this will mean (including the page) 13 pieces relating to the trip bothers me not a jot – I have no more time for triskaidekaphobia than I do for any other ridiculous superstition.

WRAPPING UP ST MICHAEL’S MOUNT

Having finished our exploration of the mount itself it was time for lunch, which was excellent. The establishment at which we ate our lunch has a rule that alcoholic drinks can only be served if food is ordered at the same time, and according to their interpretation cream teas do not count as food, so on two occasions in the course of that meal we ordered portions of chips to go with drinks. Mention of cream teas (a speciality of the far west of England) brings me to a debate that rages unchecked: which goes on the scone first, the cream or the jam? The cream advocates argue that cream in this context is the equivalent of butter (and if it is Cornish clotted cream it is so thick that one can pretty much slice it like butter!), and that if you put the cream on first you do not get jam in it. I am not sure what the jam advocates base their case on.

Lunch consumed it was time to head back to our parking place on the edge of Penzance. The tide was just starting to turn but was still a long way out, and unlike the Mont St Michel, on which the current setup of St Michael’s Mount is modelled the tide here comes in slowly (no danger of galloping horses being swallowed by an inrushing tide, as allegedly happened at Mont St Michel on one famous occasion), so we were still able to walk back across a vast expanse of beach to rejoin the official footpath just west of Marazion. I omitted to remove my socks and shoes for this part of the journey, and they ended up thoroughly soaked, although by the end of the walk they had dried out again (without the sea breeze the heat would have been fiendish).

Mathematical Pic
The first few photos here, including these mathematical pictures are from lunch

Mathematical picsMathematical Pic IIMetal pictureThrough the windowCornish beer ICornish Beer IICornish Beer IIIBoilersdetail from bottleDetail from bottle IIPaintingLooking towards the mainland

Sea birds
Just before recrossing the causeway to the mainland, we saw these birds – the one with the red bill used for digging would have been having a bonanza – there were huge numbers of worm casts in the sand.
Causeway close-up II
The causeway from close up

Worm castReturning to MarazionLooking WestGWR works, near PenzanceBeach viewShell

Farewell to St Michaels Mount
A farewell shot of the mount

St Michael's Mount panorama

Chough
A shore dwelling corvid, the Chough

A Grockle’s Eye View of Cornwall 7: Walking to St Michael’s Mount

Continuing my series about my visit to Cornwall, with the first of several posts about St Michael’s Mount.

INTRODUCTION

This series has been widely spread out – the trip it describes took place between July 12 and 16. Here is a listing of the previous posts:

  1. Getting There
  2. St Germans to St Ives
  3. A Visit to a Seal Colony
  4. The End of the St Ives Day
  5. Crossing the Cremyll Ferry to Plymouth
  6. Historic Plymouth

Having covered Thursday, Friday and Saturday in six posts we arfe now dealing with the Sunday, my last full day in Cornwall.

THE PLAN

As all five of us (my parents, my sister and my nephew as well as me) were making the visit to St Michael’s Mount we travelled in my parents camper van instead of using the train. We wanted to be underway by eight and achieved this. We were planning to explore St Michael’s Mount in full and then have lunch at an establishment there. Things panned out pretty much as intended. The road journey is a lot less scenic than the rail equivalent, so I am going to recommend unequivocally that anyone else planning to do this use the train – the walk from Penzance (all of which is familiar to me, although we started part way along it, having located a parking place just outside Penzance) is very scenic, while there is a longer walk available from St Erth (inland for most of its duration, instead of along the sea front). Here are a couple of satellite views:

Penzance - St Michael's Mount
The coastal route starting from Penzance.
St Erth to St Michael's Mount
The longer and mainly inland route starting from St Erth. This map also features what is in alphabetic terms the last place in Britain.

St Erth to St Michael's Mount

THE JOURNEY IN PHOTOGRAPHS

This section ends the post, taking us across the causeway to the base of the mount:

View from the van
The only shot I managed to get from the van on the way from Fort Picklecombe to Penzance.

Culvert ICulvert 2Welcome to PenzancePlastic FreeLooking towards PenzanceSt Michael's Mount ISt Aubyn's AbbeyGulls and signal boxView of PenzanceThe line towards St Erthtrack sideWarehouseSt Michael's Mount (1)St Michael's MountBeach sceneMastChurch TowerSailing boatsTrain coming towards PenzanceApproaching trainTrainRear of trainTrain heads for Penzance (1)Train heads for PenzanceAlmost out of viewTrain in foregroundblue plantGWR depotRolling stockThe MountThe abbeyLookingb towards the mountThe Mount IILooking towards the mountCommemorative benchThe Station House, MarazionMarazion station signMarazion stationSt Aubyn's Abbey from Marazion

People crossing the causeway to the mount
A first glimpse of the causeway.

People on the causewayWelcome to Marazion MarshMarazion MarshBird in the nature reserveLooking up at the mount

In the shallows
From Marazion the quickest way to the causeway is straight across the beach, and in the heat walking barefoot through the shallows was the way to go.

St Michaels Mount from Marazion beachLooking across at the mountGullsOutcrop observation point near start of causewayThe mount from near the start of the causewayThe abbey from near the causeway

The causeway and the mount
The causeway.

The mount viewed from the start of the causewayThe Abbey from the causewayLooking out to sea from thje causewayapproaching the Mount