Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Tuesday 10th May, Glendurgan Gardens and Coverack

Warm, sunny and less wind described the morning, after Helston we followed minor roads through to Mawnan Porth and along the banks of the Helford River, narrow channels where boats were moored.

Then to Glendurgan Gardens, where we found to out surprise that many of the Rhododendrons had already finished, a bit of a surprise considering that we came late in May last year and they had only just started opening!
Here is PAt in front of the Tropical Ferns, they look like something from the age of the dinosaurs, don't they?
The hillside next to the path is carpeted with these delightful low growing flowers
There are literally miles of footpaths, and some quite steep slopes, too!
Perhaps the most populat feature of this garden is the Laurel Maze, with the summer house in the centre, it's certainly the noisiest with people calling out to each other!
Things grow to enormous size, here Rhododendrons and Camelias are as tall as trees, but that isn't the only attraction, look at these little beauties, the individual flowers are just over a quarter of an inch long.
Pat's favourite among the Rhododendrons are the pale yellow ones like these
There are some exotics among the trees, heres Pat photographing a "Pocket Handkerchief tree", look how some of the leaves are white, they really look like Cloth.
Pat took this one of me under the bough of one of the trees, just look at the size of it!


To reach these gardens, (and others like them) you have to drive down some very narrow and tortuous roads, with possibly the worst signposting in the country, today for instance we passed half a dozen signposts that only indicated the direction we had come from, two where they pointed in the wrong direction, three where the arms were broken off, and one that was so rusty, you couldn't read it! and finally this beauty, a real work of art, even if it doesn't comply with the Euro regulations!
We had a Coronation Chicken Baked potato each in the cafe for lunch, then back along the narrow winding side road to the lovely little harbour at Coverack,
The lifeboat Station in the background is now a Fish Restaurant, and they also have a Fish and Chip shop attached, which we can recommend from last year, the Chef prepared the Fish and Chips with an incredible amount of care and they were delicious!
Walking down into the harbour I took this view, which we have added greeting text to, printed several off, and written and posted them to friends and relatives.
We sat on the low stone ledge against the harbour wall and watched the fishermen unloading their lobster pots, it was a timeless moment.
Then watched the windsurfers in the bay as we enjoyed and ice cream in the car.

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