Diary Sunday April 2

Sunday, April 2. Our tour started at ten for a tour around the most southwestern part of Cornwall.
At first we arrived at Trebah Garden. We were met by an amazing view of flowering rhododendron trees and camellia and some bushes with yellow flowers. That filled all of the ravine which went down to the Helford River.
Major Hibbert who bought the estate in 1981 came out in person and told us about this life with the garden. He and his wife intended a peaceful time of retirement but got obsessed by the restoration of the garden. It is their hobby which is filling all their time and interests.
He is one of the driving forces behind a Trust working for the protection and maintainment of the old gardens of Cornwall. It is a laborious and expensive task to keep these gardens in their full glory, and they vanish one after the other. Too few people have the opportunity to keep these gardens.
In a pond below a falling stream he kept some very beautiful and colorful Koi karps.
We did not follow all way down to the river. We didn't dare when we thought of the return uphill. We turned at the botanically old tree ferns from Tasmania. The Major had lots to tell about these.
We passed through the poor landscape on the most southern parts of Cornwall. The next stop was at the little fishing village Mousehole. The rain was pouring down so we had to open our umbrellas. The bus had to stay at the top of the cliffs, because of the steep and narrow streets. We walked down into the village and had a nice cup of tea in a teahouse sheltered for the rain and cold winds.
Here at the southern part of Cornwall we observed how they cultivated the new potatoes we enjoyed every meal. The potatoe fields were visible because of the white plastic sheets which covered those fields. Crops which seemed to be at it's finishing season was cauliflower, and large fields with more or less faded daffodils. Could it be the bulbs they were after?
The tour took us to Land's End, the utmost point of a poor heath with a few cliff islands out in the sea where the water foamed in the hard wind. Outside the indispensable(?) Visitor's Centre there was an interesting model of an old Cornish mine, as it was when they mined for tin on the heaths. Nowadays we just see the chimneys like towers in the landscape.
An interesting place was our next goal: Porthcurno med The Minack Theatre. We toiled uphill on a small bending village road with lots of white flowers on the road borders. I could not recognize them, they probably do not belong to our Swedish flora. The Theatre is hewn out of the cliff and the sea is the fond. Cannot be described, must be seen.
The road back to the hotel went through a landscape with harrowed fields, grazing land with sheep or cows. Just a few houses. A grey and rainy tour.

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