Summer 2014: Day 13 – Discovering the Camel Trail, revisiting Tintagel and Port Isaac

After all yesterday’s excitement we kept things a bit closer to Coombe Mill today. We started off with the feed run which once again the children loved.

Master C found a new way to rock his baseball cap, Mr C got a ride in the tractor trailer and Little Miss C loved helping to find eggs in the chickens’ field.

After the feed run we decided to head towards the Camel Trail and in particular the Snail’s Pace Cafe which we’d seen lots of signs for, and which sits at one end of the trail, just a mile or so down river from Coombe Mill itself. This lovely little cafe holds the title of being the first permanent off-grid cafe in the UK and I’m also delighted to say that it also serves a scrumptious quiche and salad. I might even go as far as saying one of the tastiest I’ve ever had.

I loved the vibe of the place and anywhere that has tomatoes growing alongside the menu board has to be on to a winner. The staff were incredibly welcoming and there was even a basket of toys and books to help keep the children entertained. Brilliant.

They are also a licensed bike hire site too and plenty of people were calling in to do just that whilst we had lunch.

The Camel Trail itself is an ideal place to walk with a buggy as the path is flat and hard surfaced. We didn’t go that far along it – mainly as Master C wanted to walk and LMC soon got tired – so the bit we walked (slowly) wasn’t the most thrilling, but it was just starting to get interesting as we had to turn back!

After our walk we then headed over to Tintagel which was somewhere that I was desperate to return to after a trip there when Mr C and I stayed in nearby Port Isaac. At the time I fell head over heels in love with the National Trust’s Old Post Office and back I went to see if it still held the same magic for me.

This is such a quaint little property and one that I’m guessing used to be bitterly cold in winter time, but the thing that I’ve remembered about it clearly all this time is the lovely rag rugs which sat on the floors in several of the rooms and also the samplers on the walls. I’m delighted to say that everything lived up to my memories of it, and better still as both children fell fast asleep in the car on the way there I was able to leave them in the car with Mr C whilst I wandered round on my own!

After Tintagel we headed along the coast, back to Port Isaac where we’d stayed for our last trip to Cornwall. I love this little fishing village and it’s one that so many people around the country are now very familiar with thanks to it being the home of ITV’s Doc Martin.

Even without its star TV role it is a gorgeous little place, with lots of little shops, a nice harbour and some cosy pubs too. This trip we weren’t really able to enjoy the pubs, but we went down to the harbour (where the tide was out) and Mr C and LMC were able to walk a way out along the rocks – quite an adventure for LMC.

We enjoyed an ice cream down by the water before the weather started to catch us out. The only time in the whole holiday that we left our waterproofs in the car and the heavens opened on us. It’s fair to say that we were soaked to the skin by the time we got back to the car, but hey, we’re waterproof and as they say in Yorkshire – there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing, That day we certainly had inappropriate clothing!