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When we first stopped for the night, the air was
fairly cool so we dug out our sleeping bags and decided that we would
probably be warmer if we opened them up and shared them. It took
us a while to get them sorted out so that Andy had enough blankets as
I tend to, erm, hog them a little. After a slight period of
hyper activity I finally drifted off to sleep only to be woken
periodically by the sounds of huge tractor-trailers driving by
throughout the night.
One of the major drawbacks
with sleeping overnight in a car, especially with someone else, is
that the air tends to get stuffy very quickly. Unfortunately it
rained most of the night so we couldn't have the windows down very far
and as soon as the sun popped out for even a few seconds we had an
instant understanding of the greenhouse effect. Shortly after
being woken up by the stuffy air I asked Andy how he slept during the
night. To which he replied that he was completely amazed how he
was able to watch the sleeping bag slowly creep over to my side of the
car even when I wasn't moving. Apparently he spent a good part
of the night trying to figure out how I was able to completely steal
all the blankets without realizing it or appearing to
move in any way, shape or form.
Needless to say, we didn't get much more sleep after that so we
decided that it was time to move away from the small country lane turn
night time highway and continue our way into Portscatho.
It didn't take me long before
I started recognising the landscape from the last time we were in
Cornwall and I was very pleased to be able to tell the sat-nav to be
quiet as I knew where I was going and didn't need it's assistance.
However it didn't listen too well and Andy must have had a good
chuckle at my expense as he knows that mornings and I don't always get
along very well, especially with a piece of electronic equipment
ignoring my suggestions.
We pulled into the car park at
the top of the village to enjoy the sight of the ocean and overview of
Portscatho as it was still fairly early in the morning and it didn't
look like there was very much movement in the town. It was still
raining fairly heavily when we arrived in the car park so we decided
to have our breakfast of Sugarpuffs while we were sitting there.
Again it would have been nice to have the windows open a little but
alas the weather didn't really want to cooperate with us. Conversation
after breakfast was sporadic at best since both of us were still
fairly tired from a long, noisy, stuffy night in the car and before we
knew it we had both fallen asleep again to the sounds of the ocean
waves splashing against the shore and rain on the car.
After waking up from a more peaceful sleep in the
car we drove down to the harbour wall to get a better idea of which
way the tide was moving and too assess if it would be feasible to take
the dinghy out onto the water. Unfortunately the weather
continued to be very miserable and the waves were unusually large for
that particular bay. We ended up watching the ocean for a while and
talked about what we would like to be able to do for the next couple
weeks once we settled into our cottage. We also explored the
area and found our cottage which was tucked away down a little alley
behind a couple other houses. However we had to wait until
3:30pm before taking possession of it which left us a bit of time to
kill. We decided to try to give Bob a call to let him know that
we were in the area but quickly found out that we couldn't get a
reliable phone signal down near the harbour.
After a while we decided to drive into Truro for
our lunch and to see if we could find a tackle shop so that Andy could
get the "Red-Gill" lures that he really wanted because he knew they
were good for catching Pollack. On our way to McDonalds for
lunch I noticed that we drove past a Pets at Home store which was a
stroke of luck because we had forgotten to pack a small aquarium which
we were going to use to photograph some of the fish in as well as a
test kit and a thermometers so we could take some measurements of the
changes that rock pools go through when the tide is out. Since
the Pets at Home was on the other side of the road we decided to have
our lunch first and then try to find our way into the plaza on the way
back to the downtown core in Truro.
After we finished having our lunch Andy and I
argued over who would call Bob to let him know we made it down to
Cornwall safely and to make some tentative arrangements as to when we
would meet for some rock pooling. I didn't really want to make
the call to him just in case he had an accent that I couldn't
understand so I finally persuaded Andy to make the first call.
After getting off the phone with Bob, Andy mentioned that he thought
Bob had a posh accent and didn't think that I would have any troubles
understanding him to which I was relieved. From there we made
our way back the way we had come and found the entrance to the Pets at
Home store fairly easily so we stopped in and picked up the equipment
we forgot to pack.
From there Andy reprogrammed the sat-nav to take
us a close to the tackle shop as we could get from the vague
directions we were able to find online before leaving for Cornwall.
For those of you who haven't driven in Truro, let me tell you that it
isn't exactly the easiest downtown core to navigate since there are
some places that suddenly turn into one-way streets or throughways for
buses and taxis only. We were trying to find a place to park
close to an area known as Pydar Mews and the sat-nav made sure that it
found some of the most complicated directions to get us there.
Unfortunately I missed one of the right turns close to our destination
causing us to have to make our way around the entire downtown corridor
again but we were able to find the Pydar Mews on the second attempt
only to found ourselves on a dead-end street with a round-a-bout at
the end and very few places to park. However after going around the
round-a-bout a couple times we decided to make our way back the way we
came in and were fortunate enough to find a parking spot on the way
out.
After finding a place to park I went for a walk
along Pydar St to see if I could find the tackle shop, after a little
bit of wandering around I found a promising sign that pointed to the
fishing centre so I followed the sign into a small back alley street
and entered into one of the smallest shops I had ever seen in my life.
The room was maybe 4 'x5' with a gentleman sitting behind the counter
who asked me if he could help. I told him that I was looking for
some Red-gill lures, some fishing line and swivels. He informed
me that the person who knew more about that type of stuff was out but
should be back in a couple minutes so I could look around the shop if
I would like. After a quick turn to see that there was tonnes of
stuff placed in that tiny little room I decided that I wasn't going to
move around much because if you knocked one thing off the shelves
everything else looked like it was going to come with it.
Thankfully the other person who knew more came in almost as soon as I
finished turning around and was able to help me out. He
immediately went to a cabinet that had tiny 3"x3" drawers from floor
to ceiling and opened the three relevant drawers with the correct
lures, swivels and fishing line in it without any sort of hesitation
or searching. After purchasing everything I made it back to the
car where Andy was waiting and asked him to get me out of the area as
quickly as possible. This proved to be easier said then done as
we had a tour of the downtown corridor before we made it out of there!
From there we decided it was time to head back to
Portscatho because it was nearing the time when we would be allowed to
take possession of the cottage. We crossed the King Harry Ferry
once again and made it back with around a half hour to spare so we
decided to watch the ocean for awhile. Andy was still amazed at
how rough the harbour was and hoped that it would calm down soon
enough so we could get the dinghy out. Finally 3:30pm came along
and we went to check out the cottage. When I booked it I was
told that the door should be open and the keys should be in the back
of the door but when we got there the door was locked and there
weren't any keys to be found. The only option we had was to call
the people at the cottage reservation place and hope there was someone
there who could answer our call as it was a Saturday. We tried
to use Andy's cell phone but quickly found out there wasn't any sort
of signal so we decided to drive to a higher point. Even when we
got to the top of Gerrans we still didn't find any reliable signal and
even places that showed one or two bars when Andy held the phone said
there wasn't any signal by the time he handed the cell phone back to
me. After getting frustrated with trying to find a signal, we
decided to use the payphone near the harbour wall to call.
When I called the Holiday rental people I was
transferred to an answering service where I started to leave a message
but before long a gentleman picked up the phone and I was able to
explain the situation. He was surprised to find out the door was
still locked so he said that he would be over to unlock everything for
us in about 15 minutes since he was in St. Mawes. I told him that
would be fine and that we would be waiting for him near the cottage.
He was good to his word and showed up in a
reasonable time. After opening the door he showed me around the
cottage and turned on the refrigerator and heaters for us and told us
if we had any more questions or problems to give him a call.
After that Andy and I unpacked the car and started to make ourselves
feel at home. Originally we were planning on just running up to the
local store to grab something for our tea/supper but since it was
still early in the day we decided to head back to Truro for some major
shopping. This way we wouldn't have to waste the next morning
going into town again and would be able to use that time to get some
rock pooling in.
So before long we found ourselves back on the
road heading towards the King Harry Ferry only to realize that we
forgot to bring the sat-nav with us. After a short discussion
about going back for it I felt that I would be able to find the
Tesco's easily enough without it so we continued on our way relying on
my memory from our previous vacation. Thankfully my memories
proved correct and we found Tesco's easily enough. Once we
finished the shopping we headed back to Portscatho. Upon
arriving at the King Harry Ferry, we were pleased to find ourselves at
the front of the line; it was the first time we would be the first
people on the ferry. When the ferry finally made it back to our
side of the river we were still the only people in the queue so it
looked like we were going to have the entire ferry to ourselves!
We decided to take advantage of this and record our journey on and off
the ferry.
When we finally made it back to the cottage, we
were both getting hungry and starting to feel a little tired since we
didn't have much sleep the last few days! So shortly after our
late supper we crashed for the night.
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