National Maritime Museum, Cornwall at Falmouth

A rather uninspiring walk preceeded our visit to the National Maritime Museum. On our walk we picked up from the end of our walk on the first day at Newquay harbour and followed the Coastal Path through the town to Lusty Glaze Beach and back on a dull grey morning.

Newquay wasn't putting on its best face today and I'm wondering whether it has a better face? While the main shopping street was sort of OK there was a lot of dereliction and boarded up properties around which gave it a run down air despite its reputation of being the surf capital of the UK and a happening place to be.

Mind you it had its fair share of pasty shops, each one claiming to have won medals and championships for their pasties. How many competitions can there be? In the interests of scientific enquiry I decided to conduct an experiment to test out the validity of the multifarious claims - but more of that later.

One thing in Newquay's favour was a bakery selling saffron cake. Bright yellow and very rich it provided the one positive (no two, the harbour is very picturesque) memory of the town.

We thought better of Falmouth - especially the Maritime Museum which was excellent. Full of detail and interesting stuff and very accessible to wheelchair users. Mind you, the Museum has alot to go on, claiming to be the second deepest port in the world and having a favourable location for ships coming and going down the Channel and across the Atlantic. The rich maritime history of the town was well portrayed. The boats made an interesting pattern for today's blip.

Before going back to the cottage we drove around the Castle Drive scenic road that encircles Pendennis Castle. Good views too especially of some large vessesls anchored in the bay to the south west. A quick search of their names on the internet provided a wealth of information about each ship including details of where it came from, when it berthed and where it was going next. It never ceases to amaze me what you can find out on the interweb.

Finally, the day was concluded with an abortive attempt to navigate the narrow lanes and wooded vistas of the Helford River on an elusive and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to find a viewpoint of the river stored in a memory from many years ago. But all in all, a good day.