So..  11th January 2014:

Albert and I arrived at the lands end centre on a beautiful sunny winter morning to begin our epic trip.

I was a little disappointed that so few people turned up to wave us off, in fact all the crowd control measures put into place proved unnecessary as there was only one.  Bless her, she follows me everywhere.

Part of my soul is at Lands End. Get away from the collection of buildings at the visitor centre and it is easy to find peace amongst the gorse on the rocky headlands. Some of my greatest adventures began here and Sennen Cove will always be special to me. It can be a wild place. Days like this day it can sparkle with beauty.

Ok Albert, enough of the melancholy of nostalgia, get those wheels rolling.

Sennen Cove, two miles up the road is a must see. A fine natural harbour, stunning scenery, good beer and food at the Old Success hotel, what else would anyone want?  Oh yes, free loo's at the end of the harbour car park, just past the lifeboat station.

A useful tip:  From the end of the harbour car park it is an easy mile walk to Lands End. Walking there avoids having to use the theme park type entrance at the visitor centre, avoids all the crowds, the long queues to buy a parking ticket and gives a few minutes of some of the most beautiful walking to be had anywhere.

A couple of miles past Sennen and the road forks with the B3306 leaving on the left to hug the coastline. The next few miles is everything that to me is Cornwall. Wild moorland ending at steep high granite cliffs plunging into the Atlantic ocean, rocky tors soaring from the bleak moor, ruined buildings a reminder of the cornish mining heritage, beautiful secluded coves.

Forget picture postcard images of sandy beaches, sticky-fingered kids eating ice cream, bronzed surfers eating healthy pasta or hordes of tourists eating plastic pasties. This is the real Cornwall.

There is a health warning for those who attach importance in getting from A to B in less time than that taken by a jet fighter. The road can be narrow with lots of small villages and hamlets clogging the place up.

None better than St Just. A square where everyone parks, the main road runs along the bottom of it, two side roads come into the main road opposite and everyone seems to want to get to the co-op  (hopefully to buy tins of beans and not to do their banking) which means crossing the road.

Fortunately Albert, carving a fearsome swathe through all the obstructions, momentarily forgot that he was named after the German consort to someone of regal bearing and chose instead to think he was a Panzer carrying Mrs Rommel to a hair appointment. Had he not we would still be there.

After 20 miles St Ives is reached. St Ives is picturesque and worth a stop and an explore through its narrow steep streets.

it's neighbour across the bay is Hayle, best just carry on rolling.

The next 30 miles is more of the same, past the heritage village of St Agnes, the beautiful cove of Portreath, Porthtowan where hordes of contractors with big diggers were attemting to put the sand back onto the beach after thousands of tons were shifted by the recent violent storms. This is some of the best Cornish coast reachable by car. Glorious places.

Finally, 60 plus miles from lands end and the busy tourist resort of Newquay is reached.  All is not lost however, it is easily by-passed! It has wonderful beaches though and is an internationally recognised surfing centre so well worth an explore.

The beach of lusty glaze is reached but I never stopped as I might have had a lusty glazed look in my eye with all the hunky surfers around. Next is the plunge into the dramatic watergate bay before continuing along the rugged coast towards the Fishing Town of Padstow, the classic cove of Polzeath and the small fishing village of Port Isaac. 

15th January and a break, to put a bit of more normal life in order and .....

2nd March 2014 and on we go again!

A few miles further north and the town of Tintagel is reached. There is nothing really beautiful about Tintagel itself, but the coastline here is totally stunning. Pride of place, and what puts Tintagel on the map, is the rocky outcrop, connected to the mainland by a short causeway over the sea, that houses the ancient 6thC castle remains.

Reputedly this was Camelot, the centre of Arthurian legend, King Arthurs favourite castle and where the knights of the round table met to plan their next series of chivalrous deeds.

Queen Guinevere of Legend.

If she had her Lancelot
then Queen
Jennifer has
her Albert!

Of course of more interest to me is my olde-English namesake, Guinevere, King Arthur's queen who was also ever so friendly with his most famous  knight, Lancelot.

Sadly all the modern day tall and dashing Lancelots seemed to have left town and the only thing that I got from hanging around Camelot was a parking ticket.

It was also time for me to leave town, recalling the fate that befell the earlier Jennifer.  Guinevere' ended up serving penitence in a nunnery.

Goodness, what a thought.

"Albert! onwards".

On our way out of town, heading towards Boscastle, we stopped at Charlies, a cafe - restaurant - delicatessen virtually next door to the visitor centre. An absolute charm. The welcome warm, the bacon bap delicious, the coffee wonderful. However the starring piece, a childrens corner, wherein as wall art was the delightful children's story of charlie, the pirate cat, and the treasure.

I got so enraptured reading it that I was almost climbing into the tot's play area.

Granny! Behave yourself!

five miles further on from Tintagel is the fishing village of Boscastle. A picture postcard image of tranquility, a classic harbour sandwiched between the steep sides of a narrow gorge.

This tranquility was violently interrupted when, on the 16th August 2004, thunderstorms produced freak torrential rains, at an intensity forecast to happen only once in 300 years, and the village, as well as nearby Crackington Haven, was devastated  by tremendous flash floods that swept away everything in it's path. Proof, if proof was needed, that the maritime position and ever changeable weather pattern of these islands can produce extremes with sudden ferocity anytime.

Heading North from Crackington haven the scenery now mellows, the steep sided gorges of the wild North Cornwall coast giving way to flat, broad, sandy expanses as the beaches of widemouth bay and Bude is reached. Bude is the last major town in Cornwall and soon it is into Devon, and the broken, shattered cliffs of the bleak and desolate Hartland Point.

This point marks the southern tip of the Bristol Channel and the end of this section. Soon dramatic coastal scenery will be replaced by the mud flats of the severn estuary and the mega industry of Avonmouth and Port Talbot.

Good bye Cornwall. Hello Devon and Hartland Point.

Onward Albert, new adventures await.

Please continue to the next section : The Bristol Channel