Duxford - 18th of April

I've been feeling terribly sick for the last couple of weeks. Today is the first day I've felt anything like my normal self. I'm desperate to get out of the house and somehow managed to convince Carolyn that it was a good idea to take me on an outing to the Imperial War Museum Duxford. I struggled at times but really enjoyed my day out. Especially watching the Supermarine Spitfire buzz the airfield and looking around the American Hanger complete with a Lockheed SR-71a, B-52 Bomber, B-17 Flying Fortress, A-10 Tank Buster and P51 Mustang. It was great to see an Avro Vulcan bomber and Concorde again too. This museum really has everything, including fabric from the original Wright Brother's Flyer.

Tavistock - 31st of March

Carolyn and I were married at Tavistock Country Club in New Jersey. Carolyn has always wanted to visit her club's namesake in Devon, England. Fortunately it was a short detour on our trip back to London.

Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station - 31st of March

The Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station is a major British Telecom communications hub with over 60 satellite dishes and links to undersea cables. The facility is close to our B&B and made a good stop off point before heading back to London. The first dish onsite 'Arthur' received the first live transatlantic television broadcasts from the United States via the Telstar satellite on July 11, 1962. After looking around the complex we took a guided tour of Arthur to learn more about how the process works. Interestingly, Arthur is still used for communications with shipping in the Pacific ocean. The museum is very interesting and includes free phone calls around the world as well as access to the world's fastest internet cafe where each computer has a guaranteed internet connection of 100Mbps.

Land's End and Mousehole - 30th of March

My first visit to Land's End! I've been fascinated with Land's End ever since my brother took part in Ian Botham's walk from John O'Groates to Land's End. Unfortunately we arrived after the official photographer had gone home, taking the top of his famous sign with him. We browsed around the closed up funfair and tacky exhibitions. Not sure what I was expecting but it was all a bit of a let down somehow.

On the way home we stopped off in the small fishing village of Mousehole where we grabbed an excellent fish supper in the Ship Inn. As we sat by the pub window I was surprised to see a couple of kids going for a swim in the harbour - must have been freezing.

Submarine Cables - 30th of March

I've wanted to visit Porthcurno since watching an episode of Coast. Porthcurno is famous for being the termination point for the submarine cables which once connected Britain to the far corners of the empire including India, Australia and South Africa. The actual termination points can still be seen in the concrete hut on the beach (see photo below where you can see a cable running into the hut). Porthcurno is still used as the landing point for 6 high capacity fibre optic cables which form a significant part of the UK communications backbone.

Carolyn wanted me to take a photo of her standing in the sea so she could send it to her Nephew and explain to him that it is the same sea which he swims in. As you can see - the experience ended in tears.

St. Michael's Mount - 30th of March

First up was a trip to St. Michael's Mount near Penzance. We arrived at high tide and took a small boat over to the mount. The man working the boat had a new puppy called Josie and Carolyn was very taken. It was low tide after we finished looking around so we walked back along the cobled path shown in the photo.

Cornish Costal Walk - 29th of March

Finally in Cornwall we were once again eager to test out our new hiking boots. Feeling a little hung over from the night before, we staggered to the town green and caught the bus to Mullion. As you might have noticed in previous blog posts Carolyn and I are big fans of Guglielmo Marconi and it had not escaped our attention that the first wireless transmission across the Atlantic had originated in Poldhu - a few miles up the coast in the wrong direction. There was no way we were going to miss seeing the site of this world changing event. We made good progress too, that was until we came across Poldhu beach. The most staggeringly beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life. Whilst exploring I came across some limpets on a rock which I pointed out to Carolyn with my foot. Unfortunately I knocked one of them off and being a bit soft spent a good while helping it re-attach itself to it's rock.


Eventually we managed to drag ourselves away from Poldhu beach and came to the spot of the fisrt wireless transmission across the atlantic on December 12th 1901. The morse code for 'S' was received by Marconi on Signal Hill, St. John's, New Foundland. The original buildings at Poldhu were demolished but the foundations still remain and there is a really cool museum telling the history of this amazing achievement.


The walk back to the B&B was amazing but it took us a little longer that expected as I was continually stopping to take in the beautiful scenery (I thought Carolyn was going to kill me):

Valley of the Rocks - 28th of March

After checking out we headed off on a 2.5 mile walk along the coastal path to the Valley of the Rocks. The weather wasn't the best but the scenery was simply stunning and there was wildlife everywhere including goats, lambs and ponies. On the return part of the walk we visited an Iron Age Fort and the ruins of Hollerday House, once home to the 19th century publisher George Newnes. The rest of the day was taken up by the long drive to the Atlantic House B&B on the Lizard Peninsula - the most Southernly point in Great Britain.