An Adventurous Day on the Lizard !

It made the Da Vinci Code mystery and the Indiana Jones adventure look like 2nd rate events as we set off on a day of high suspense. Could we discover the rumoured beauty of Kynance Cove on the nearby former smuggling dominated landscape of the Lizard Peninsular, could Henley's now crusty jocks make it 2 more days back to Honiton and Henny's washing machine and most importantly could we finally find uncover the legendary but yet so far elusive Cornish clotted ice cream !

With a mixture of excitement and nervous trepidation Viv, Linton, H and self took to the roads driving 40kms to the supposed isolated Kynance Cove car park on the Lizard.

I suppose we should have expected the unexpected as the Lizard was teeming with holiday makers making the narrow roads and lanes just a tad more challenging. None the less our collective jaws dropped as we drove into the Kynance Cove car park to be confronted by vehicular and pedestrian traffic that resembled the approach to Bondi Beach on a hot summers day.

The only problem was that this was not Bondi Beach, it was overcast not hot and the supposed beach was a collection of wild looking rocks superimposed against an even wilder looking headland.

We paid an exorbitant 8 pounds ($15) to park and watch astonished as a long snaking line of adults and kids traipsed into the distance carrying all things "beachy" including spades, buckets and blow up mattresses.

A small walk and a few pics soon confirmed that the secret of Kynance Cove was out with seemingly 1/2 of Cornwall picnicing at what could be a magnificently beautiful location.

We turned around and picked up the Coastal Walking trail and made our way on a now sunny morning to Lizard Point some 5kms distant along a section of spectacular trails albeit shared with numerous holiday makers.

At the Point we took in a cuppa overlooking the rugged coastline while H made himself popular with the locals rejoicing every time the Poms lost a wicket on the final day of the first cricket test in Birmingham.

A little more coastal walking and some failed drone flying (there are so many exclusion zones in the UK) and we headed inland to the town of Lizard itself. While Viv feasted on a healthy looking salad I went in search of a clotted ice cream. Not finding one I consoled myself in a double decker quivering cone obviously disappointed at my lack of success.

From Lizard we wandered 3 or 4 more kms back to the Kynance Cove car park passing a stream of exiting beach traffic walking vast distances to avoid the 8 pound car park having found out that they would have been better served trying to swim in the Thames river than at this churning non life guarded supposed beach.

With fewer nervous screams from my passengers we made it back safely to the Penzance sea front car park (they only charge 8 pounds for 24 hours !) in time for a well earned rest.

The adventure continued in the evening as we searched high and low for some damned clotted ice cream. Not finding one at the local pub or the nearby Thai restaurant we settled instead for a quaint sea front cafe having to down coffee and cake when the Dawn French lookalike owner kindly confirmed what we already knew that Penzance was crap for ice cream !

As for Henleys's crusty jocks the fact that they were left standing by themselves upright in the corner of our room might indicate that their use by date has well and truly expired !