ST IVES and ST MICHAEL'S MOUNT
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Lynne Pearl
Aug ‘26
STIVES
So we decided to visit slightly off season and it had to be St Ives when it is quiet. There is something about the light, there always is. It makes you sleep differently and the sea isa pellucid colour that we could see from our apartment window. It was very high up with a view over the whole bay towards Hayle Towans, a set of sand dunes that runs for miles and protects the bay of St Ives. Below us was the harbour and in front of us the beautiful church of St Ia.
The church clock struck the hours, the half hours and the quarters regularly and all night long. So one slept with the sound of the time clicking away, little by little and the face looked into the room as if to say time is here and time is real.
Everywhere you walk is the sea in all its colours and lights, sometimes aqua, sometimes yellow, sometimes a pink sky and then framed by jagged black rocks.
The wild life is coming back after over fishing and now there is a resident school of dolphins in the Bay that are attracted by the warmer and warmer waters year by year. Now they stay and with them it means that other parts of the system are blossoming too. The wildlife has come back to lve with us.
Porthminster Beach
August 26
The most beautiful beach in the world! It has won awards, the sea is turquoise bright and then the deepest blue clear imaginable.
And the light is bright, clear and piercing. There never was such a light as this.
It makes you feel alive, every inch of it and you are glad, happy to be here in this glorious place.
The waves knock you over again and again even knocking you on the head, until you are covered in salt. It is wonderful to be here.
The best beach in the world with sand the yellow of butter. It’s summer and it’s warm here.
Trip to St Michael’s Mount
From St Ives we need the 17 bus which takes us to the end of the line town of Penzance. Penzance is also the end of the line for the trains. They stop herein this place. There is sea and sky and gorse and some houses, a small town with a statue of Davy at the top of the town, but there is nothing here but an end.
From here the trains run to Paddington, even a night sleeper. Imagine sleeping at Paddington and waking up at the end of the world. Nothing else there, except now you have to get out and see what the end is like.
There is an expanse of water and there in it rising as if talking to the heart, and a heart for the world, is St Michaaels Mount. Out of sea, joined to the land by a causeway at very low tide, it becomes an island again at high tide. Do not be fooled, go when you are told to leave the island, the tide comes in quickly and walking the causeway in water in your shoes as the seaweed waves at you, is very wet.
In winter storms the rocks of the causeway were chucked about and had to be replaced, as if giants had been playing boulders and the small humans had to mend it again in order to go on.
It’s a place to hide and a place to look at sky and sea and a castle on an island so small that the castle just fits the top of it.
To Lands End on bus 1A
On the way to Lnads End, it’s a place where the land literally ends. We leave behind the steep hill out of Penzance to take the road to Lands End. Behind us is the sweep of Mounts bay and jewel of jewel in its waters lies St Micheals Mount.
There are exceptionally large Friesens in the fields grazing, hanging out in a group, beside a hedge. At Boleigh Farm we see black and white cats in an old grey stone farm yard.
Our bus falls silent, we are approaching a special place, it is sending the humans to sleep, especially the young on the bus. Now there is a precipitous drop and sharp bends in the road. Here they grow vines on the slopes in the sunshine. In a garden there is a life size stone elf.
There on a fence post is one crow and on the next fence post, a falcon. Huge.silent, majestic. Then there are standing stones and people inside the circle. There are signs to the Minack Theatre.
We pass signs to Porthcurno, the scene of massive storms in February, only months away and now is peace. There are hairpin bends and right angles and the smell of rose petals, like t h e smell of rose talc. There is a lady with dahlias in the back of her car. Huge dahlias, not quite real dahlias, larger than real life dahlias, of orange and pink. Then there are two horses on the road and we are at Land’s End. There is turquoise and navy sea in a farm overlooking the rocks, there are llamas in a field.
Lands End feels nothing more nor less than the end of land!
Author of Thiel, Thiel by Lynne Pearl, and Road Trip River Voices
Story, Travel poetry, and blogging on Travels in the South West
Thiel 2 - Remaining Still eBook : Pearl, Lynne: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
