A New Adventure in France

With another day of sunshine ahead we fancied a boat trip from Falmouth and headed there on the motorbike. Cornwall is well known for parking charges so the bike usually enables us to get close to where we want to go and to park for free. So we were able to park right in the centre of Falmouth near the pier from where the ferry to the small village of St Mawes on the Roseland peninsula departs. It’s only a 20 minute crossing by boat but avoids a 19 mile trip by road. The journey across gives views over Pendennis Castle on the Falmouth side and its 16th century sister castle, St Mawes castle, on the other side.

St Mawes itself is another attractive fishing village and we followed a walk around the headland that took us past the castle, along the coastal path and then a steep climb up and then down back to the village. The sun had certainly brought out the holiday makers and there’s a lovely village beach and slipway where children were swimming and catching crabs at an impressive rate. We wondered if the same crabs get tipped back in at the end of the day only to be caught again the next day by the new arrivals.

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The quayside pubs were pretty busy but we found the Victory Inn in a side street which had free tables on a lovely rooftop terrace overlooking the port. Mussels were on the menu and Joe can never resist those so they had to be tried – and they were very good, washed down with Cornish cider. After a return trip to a different quay in Falmouth we headed home via a more cross country route.

Some of the roads in Cornwall are lovely for motorcycling with long sweeping open roads. Others were obviously built by and for the piskies (Cornish pixies) and get steeper and narrower towards the destinations. On one road near Helford Passage on the River Fal we ended up in a Mexican stand-off behind a car with a van coming uphill the other way. The van was not going to reverse but did not grasp that motorbikes don’t have a reverse gear, so we ended up with Claire getting off to push the heavy motorbike backwards, uphill, while Joe manoeuvred and pushed with his feet. A first for Joe apparently and there was much head shaking at the van driver afterwards!