Farewell Kernow

Cornwall, Kernow in the Cornish language, has a colourful history that includes of pirates and smugglers. It is highly possible that many of my Cornish ancestors were involved.

Frenchman's Creek is one of the places pirates were said to have hidden their ships. It is where Daphne du Maurier set her novel of the same name, about a wealthy socialite woman who falls on love with a French pirate. We walked the banks of the creek and took a boat tour there as well as further up the Helford River. It is exactly as du Maurier describes, green and secretive, and muddy at low tide.

There has been a ferry across the Helford River, in south Cornwall, for over 1000 years. It is listed in the Doomsday Book. We used it as well as other local ferries and buses to rewalk some sections of the South West Coast Path, and to visit Falmouth and St Mawes.

This is Helford Passage where we stayed in an apartment just behind the pub on the beach for the final week of our UK wanderings. There are a lot of upper class accents here. A lot of privilege. But it is not at all pretensious, but rather quiet, relaxed and tucked away from all the stress of the real world. A bit surreal but wonderfully peaceful.

Walking, north and south of the Helford River.

Took the ferry over the Helford River to go for lunch at this pub, and then for a walk in the forest on the banks of Frenchman's Creek

Caught a bus to Falmouth to see this beautiful exhibition of pre-Raphaelite paintings and tapestries inspired by the legend of King Arthur.

Falmouth is a small city on one of the largest natural deep water Harbours in the world so it has a rich maritime history that continues today.

St Mawes, reached by ferry from Falmouth.

Castle at St Mawes, one of many built by Henry VIII to defend the coast in the 1600s.

Our final evening. This might look like a bunch of blokes drinking beers at the pub, but it is actually the famous Mousehole Men's Voice Choir performing in front of the Ferryman's Inn just below our flat.

And - wow! They sure can sing and have fun! They have toured all over the world.

And now the time has come to bid farewell to the UK. We have travelled from the bottom to the top and back to the bottom over the last four months. Not everything went according to plan but that is the journey. Embrace it all. It is all part of the whole, the wonderful wanderment of life.