Not a Cheap Date
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 5 ~ Friday 6 September ~ Tresco
Amanda goes for an early run and sees some dramatic morning skies. I am still sensibly asleep at this point.
At the rather more sensible hour of about twenty past nine, we are ready to head out on our bicycles.
Not that we plan on going very far by bike, just down to the jetty. We're going to get the boat to St Mary's, the largest and most developed of the Scilly Isles.
In pure size terms, it's not all that much larger than Tresco, but it's far more heavily populated and built up. In round figures it's twice the area and ten times the population. That doesn't exactly make it a busy metropolis though: overall population density is less than the average for the whole of the UK, and less than one-fortieth of Central London's!
You will recall I said at the start of this blog that we hadn't found it to be quite what we'd been looking for as a place to stay, but it would seem silly of us not to visit.
On our way to the other side of the island, it's looking like the day could turn out very nicely.
Tresco does not appear to be a hotbed of bicycle crime. We just leave the bikes in the rack by the jetty and we haven't even got locks in the first place.
Some supplies are being offloaded before our ferry is due. The island does have some farm land but it's very far from self-sufficient and almost everything has to come in by boat.
Here we are.
Firethorn is the main ferry serving Tresco to the other islands and it runs a regular scheduled service. There are also some smaller jet-boats that act more like taxis, but we don't - for now at least - need anything else.
Quéguiner, as best I can tell from Google-translated French websites, is a manufacturer of concrete and other building materials (I wonder if Dr Rob knows of them professionally) but they also own or sponsor a yacht racing team. This would appear to be a support vessel for the team - it's scarcely a racer itself - but it is just sitting quietly in the sea doing absolutely nothing obvious right now. There's quite a lot about them on the web, but I can't easily find anything specific to here and now.
Ah, that's one of the aforementioned jet-boats. There are two, and Thunder's sister ship is rather unsurprisingly named Lightning.
In the interests of minimising the risk of Amanda getting seasick, she went straight to the back of the boat when we boarded while I stayed forward initially. But very quickly the boat filled up so much that I couldn't get back to sit with her at all, so I remained at the front and now I'm off the boat long before some people at the back have even stood up.
Now according to the GPS track, we walked though town to get here from the landing point, but since I have no pictures whatsoever between disembarking and first seeing this bit of beach, I must deduce that it was very unphotogenic.
Is this a vehicle or an objet? We honestly don't know.
A subtle hint that there must be something of a prevailing wind here.
An old military installation.
The fortification of this area dates back to the end of the 16th century, when it was feared that King Philip of Spain might launch another Armada, and it remained of military significance up to the Second World War. English Heritage have a good page on the history here. The Scilly Isles' total complement of Grade I listed buildings are in this area!
The original path has eroded and collapsed here.
Earlier, we spotted what we thought looked like a nice place for lunch, so after circumnavigating the headland, we make our way there.
It's warm enough to sit outside.
And a very fine seafood platter is much appreciated.
After lunch, we want to walk out to the lighthouse at Peninnis.
This part of the island is a lot more rocky.
According to our guidebook, many of the rocks have whimsical names, but it doesn't provide sufficient information for us to indentify any specific ones.
The lighthouse dates back to 1911. The original light burnt gas; surprisingly it wasn't converted to electric operation until 1992.
But see that little black thing sticking up from the railing on the right hand side? That's the light today! The old light and lens mechanism remain in the tower but are no longer in use, having been replaced by an LED lantern.
Interesting construction detail. Well, I think it's interesting, and it's my blog, so there!
We think this is "Pulpit Rock".
Back to the harbour to get our return boat. Note this fine clock which tells you both the time and the place.
I don't think he's impressed.
Before we depart, a whole troop of school children cross our boat and get on to Thunder. They all seem to have luggage and after a moment's thought, we deduce that the smaller islands simply won't have enough children to warrant their own school, and daily commuting is far from practical, so they must mostly be weekly boarders.
Back to Tresco we go.
Our cottage at twilight.
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