The Carlton Hotel Newquay

Firstly, sorry for the delay- I'm having difficulties getting on line with my netbook. WILL TRY TO ADD PHOTOS SOON!<br><br>Woke to beautiful blue skies then, after saying goodbye to Rob, who's work takes him all around Europe, Ann dropped us off at the car hire joint at Gatwick Airport and we climbed aboard the Hyundai i30.<br>First stop along the M23 etc was Stonehenge, freezing cold ...

Today we went on a day trip to Tintagel and Newquay.<br><br>Tintagel Castle (now the ruins of) is the legendary birthplace of King Arthur, and lies on an exposed headland on the north side of the Cornwall peninsula. There is a lot of history there; some findings suggest that it was occupied as long ago as 200-300AD! There is a small chapel (well, ruins of) which dates from around 1000AD, and the castle itself was established around 1233AD.<br>

It was a shopping and driving day today. We went for a bit of an impromptu tour around the Bodmin Moor area (didn't see the beast unfortunately) and then went to a big department store called Trago Mills where I bought a big road map for when I get a job driving around Europe.<br><br>Not much else to report for today, but we did see a cool scooter with thousands of mirrors and a tail!<br>

For our first full day away, we did some shopping in the morning, then went for a walk around Looe, a small seaside town. Looe was mainly based on the fishing trade, but also had quite a lot of shops to browse. <br><br>We saw quite a few people fishing for crabs, using a small mesh bag with some bait on a line, and it was amazing at how quickly the crabs were being picked up...20-30 seconds was enough in some ...

For my next trip I was off to Cornwall in the South West for a week with my Nan, aunties Jeanette and Marion and uncle Roland. We stayed at Lakeview Villas, about a 5 minute drive out of Liskeard.<br><br>Today we drove down from London, and aside from a bit of a holdup at Bath, it was a smooth drive down.<br>

... just outside of the campground so we capitulated to the overpriced rubbish being sold in the onsite mini-market...awful doughy pizzas were best we could do :( <br> Next we needed to wash our clothes so we took our stuff to the onsite Laundry and nearly fell over when we worked our it would cost over £14 to wash and dry our stuff. Not going to happen! The laundromat in town must ...

... arrive. It was a gorgeous day with the morning mist clearing to reveal clear blue skys... were we really still in the UK? The project is made of us 3 biomes (Mediteranian, Tropical Rainforest and outside gardens) and the Core which is really an education centre. <br> The Med Biome gave us an insight into the types of plants (both food and wild) we would be encountering over the next few months in Italy, Spain, Morroco and Portugal. The temperature in this biome was not ...

We woke to a lovely sun rise, so it was out for a morning run and a few photos of the wonderful views before making our way over the causeway to St Michael's. The castle and grounds don't open till 10am, but you can only walk over the causeway at low tide. We scored the tide so we had until 12.30pm to see the castle and be able to walk back otherwise it would be underwater and the return would have to be by boat...if it was running.<br><br ...

We spent the morning wandering around St Ives. <br><br>It is a beautiful village full of art gallaries and narrow streets. <br><br>All the walking around made us hungry. <br><br>How could I pass up the opportunity for a hearty Beef and Stilton Pasty.<br><br>Kim equally splurged on Cornish Cream Scones and coffee ...

... the kids. Fortunately TV was entertaining for them - ie reality shows - and they were happy to stay in one place for a few days, so we looked around a couple of times and went to dinner at the on-site restaurant by ourselves. Places we visited were Newquay, Land's End, Penzance, Truro, Redruth and Falmouth, all within an hour of our unit. I loved the village atmosphere and ...