Not a Cheap Date
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 10 ~ Wednesday 11 September ~ Tresco to Trengilly
Today we travel back to the mainland, but our flight isn't until well into the afternoon so we've still got most of the day here.
It's looking like it's going to be a sunny day. We thought when we first visited the Abbey gardens that we'd love to seem them again in the sun, and it looks like we'll finally get our chance. There are also some parts of the island we really need to see before we leave, so we pack our bags for the staff to pick up, and take to our bicycles for the last time.
We've noticed this small herd of cows seem to be moved around various fields. They were behind our cottage at one point, but now they're up the road a little.
As this sign (from Bryher actually) explains, the livestock is as much to create and preserve the desired landscape as it is to be an agricultural business.
This is near the northern end of the island. Technically it's about the most north-easterly point, despite the fact that it's to the west of most of the island. I have a Geography O-Level, so I understand this.
Even on quite a calm day, the Atlantic swell can generate some impressive breaks against the rocks.
Now to the south-westerly tip, and Carn Near Quay. This is Tresco's low water quay but it's not often needed compared to, say, Bryher's. None of our boat trips have used it so far, so this is our first proper sight of it.
Back to the Abbey Gardens, then, and now with some sunshine the colours can be spectacularly intense.
The red squirrels are properly red (well more orange, but yeah) and there are no cruise liner tour groups to fight through either. Coming back was a wise move.
It reminds me slightly of RHS Wisley, where they like to show off their pumpkins in the autumn too. Indeed, I once won a prize for guessing the weight of a pumpkin there.
[Aside: I wrote a little story about that which I circulated as an email, but it never got onto FatSlowCow, even though in the early days, FSC blogs were always created as a derivative of an email. As it's an amusing tale, I have now rectified that omission here: Far far a-weigh.]
I think this bee might be a bit confused. It's not going to find anything useful at the edge of the flower.
Or is it? Maybe this is some deep symbiotic relationship I'm missing through not being an expert melittologist.
[I confess that my first thought was that a bee-studier would be an apiologist, but then no: that's a nasty mixture of Latin and Greek, it can't be right. But it turns out that this term is indeed used in many cases, although some authorities ["who?", as Wikipedia would say] use it for the subset of melittological studies centering on honeybees and their relationship to humans and the ecosystem.]
Strangely, Melitta is also the name of a particular genus of bees, but quite distinct from Apis which contains the honeybees. Confusing that the overall term for the study of bees is derived from the same source as a name that only applies to some of them.
Oh dear, these sunflowers are looking very sad. Amanda has a particular fondness for sunflowers (as regular readers may have noticed) and feels a little sorry for them.
If you're a Roger Dean fan, this might make you think of his artwork, as it did me.
Say hello to Gaia.
It's by David Wynne, and this is not the first time his work has appeared on this website. Back in 2020, "Gorilla" at Crystal Palace Park featured in Amanda's virtual London Marathon. Funnily enough, there's another piece of his in Kingston, not far from were we live (in fact, just at the end of the road where some friends of ours live). You can see it here in Google Street View but I think you'll agree the Tresco setting is rather better.
More beautiful colours in the sun.
These cabbage-on-stick-sort-of succulents are seen all around, but these are particularly good ones.
It looks like someobody's taken a spray-can of red paint to the centre of this plant, but it's absolutely real! It's a type of bromeliad though I'm not sure exactly which one. An image search shows several species all looking quite similar to this.
Yep, more than worth taking the time to revisit the gardens.
Next door there's a small museum called 'Valhalla', mainly showing ships' figureheads and related memorabilia.
This rather splendid chap is desribed in a panel below, which I will simply show rather than transcribe.
See above.
This cannon is French, though it was salvaged from a sunken British warship. HMS Association was wrecked off the Scillies in 1707 in what was one of the worst disasters in British naval history. The cannon is most likely a trophy taken from the siege of Toulon, part of the War of the Spanish Succession.
We drop our bikes back, settle our final bill (gosh, that was a lot!), and the hour is now upon us for a spot of lunch and a lunchtime beer.
The tides of beer! I like it.
There's a swimming pool that's open to resident guests, and Amanda thinks it would be a tragedy if she never got to swim in it, so now's her last chance.
Apart from the painted figures in the mural, she has the pool to herself. There's a sauna/hot-tub room out of the picture to the left that a couple of other people are using, and while she was getting changed somebody else did a couple of lengths, but that's it.
After her swim, we'll gradually meander down to the heliport via one last bit of the island with a prominent cairn that we've so far only seen from a distance.
On a related note, remember we were curious about the beach activity the other day? The Scilly Swim Challenge is a series of swimming events that are being held over the week, and the people on the beach are mostly participants who have just completed a stage. I think the flotilla of kayaks are marshals and safety officers heading for the next section, or possibly the pub if they've finished for the day.
In a wooded part, we suddenly come across Tristan's Tree House.
And this is what we are here for.
On each of the four sides there's a tablet honouring the members of the Smith/Dorrien Smith family who served as Lord Proprietor, beginning with Augustus Smith who founded the dynasty and died in 1872.
Oh, remember I mentioned "Troy Towns" - stone circles - a little way back?
You would not learn the history from the ice cream container, but it is very good ice cream.
(No there isn't an ice-cream van behind the monument. Remember that the heliport is just a couple of minutes' walk from the Abbey and its cafe. That's where we are now.)
Here comes our ride.
And we're ready to fly.
Bye-bye Tresco.
Hello Cornwall.
We thought we'd like somewhere a bit different from the Premier Inn we stayed at on our way out, but at a similar kind of distance from Penzance so a nice comfortable drive. We have therefore booked the Trengilly Wartha Inn, about nine miles or so further than Heston where we stayed before. Up to there and a little further, we're on main roads, or at least main by local standards, but suddenly we find ourselves on tiny country lanes with nothing but satnav to guide us.
It really does feel like the middle of nowhere. Looking at the map, it's not quite that isolated, but they surely can't get much casual passing trade!
No pictures of the exterior on arrival, because we're too busy checking ourselves in and getting ready for dinner.
Despite the out-of-the-way location and the fact that it's a midweek evening, there's a proper pub atmosphere.
Here's our table.
And gosh, another place where the pub appearance belies some distinctly non-pub-grub food.
They have rules! I'm curious about Buffy being on the list, and "Tarmac Textures"? Obviously a local subject for local people.
The list of banned topics is a lot longer. I note that "Narrow Lanes" is among them, so it looks like we aren't the first people to have noticed. Fortunately, we have some impressively narrow lanes in Surrey too, some cut into solid rock so you can't just squeeze into the hedge a bit, so we're fine with them. However, I read a little while back that a large percentage of people will choose a massively longer way round rather than take these rural roads. I can't remember exactly how much the average acceptable delay was, but it did amaze me. And then Amanda piped up and said she sympathised and would be seriously tempted herself!
And after another fine evening of food and drink, time for bed.
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