A week of Camping
09.08.2006
Last night I got back from a week long camping trip to Newquay. The forecast predicted bad weather. Oh how wrong it was! It definately wasn't the hottest Newquay I'd visited, but still hot enough to give me a lovely bit of sunburn!
We obviously went to the beach everyday. Crantock, Watergate, Perth, Fistral. Of those, Crantock was my favourite. It was quite quiet, with nice sized waves, and a river running down its North side.
I rented a surfboard for a few days so I could try to learn this sport I'd always wanted to try out. At first I thought it was impossible. Every time I caught a wave, the nose of the board went under water and flipped over in a succession of spectacular summersaults, with me not far behind. Fortunately, after a few hours of being battered by this crazed board, I managed to stand up on a wave and ride the surf to the shore. Ah yes, the feeling of beating the board that hated me at its own game!
After this, I didn't retreat to the sand until it was time to head back to the campsite, and by the end of the three days, I do have to admit, I was getting better, although I could still barely steer the board so if I started to hurtle toward a 12 year old boy on a bodyboard, I'd just have to jump off and hope the safety leash wasnt so long as to cause the board to crack the boy's skull, landing me in quite a bit of trouble!
At night, we went to some local pubs. The best of which was 'The Mermade' at Perth. This pub is deceptively big, and extremely lively. The Scottish 'busker' was of course the host of best night, and his skit of the James Blunt song 'Beautiful' was pure genius, with the first line being 'My life is shit'.
After a couple more days of body boarding, we decided to head off to the Eden Project. This is a fantastic place to visit, especially the 'humid tropics biome' which gave me a taster for what to expect when I visit Vietnam and Cambodia. Lovely sweat.
After the Eden Project, we headed off for a last splash around at Crantock Beach. By now we had grown accustomed to the freezing water, and when out feet felt it's temperature, the rest of the feeling in our body just gave up and let us run out into the water and risk pneumonia and all those other diseased that you get from freezing Atlantic waters.
Next morning, we started our 8 hour car journey back home where the weather was as we left it. Cold, cloudy, and raining.
Today I've found out there isn't much work for me, so that's stuck a fortnight delay on my plans of IndoChina. Oh well, at least I'm now refreshed from this dastardly town!
