Cornwall and first part of Wales

This first picture is to prove we actually did have lovely weather most of the time. This was in Fowey during our walk around town. Oh btw: I am no longer a blonde as of last Thursday, so these will be my last pictures as a blonde.

A big day out was planned for Monday the 14th with lots of lovely views. Well the views were lovely, but not exactly what we hoped they would be haha, since it was extremely foggy! So foggy instead most people were driving with their special fog light on.... a well it got better during the day and we got lots of 'mysterious' photos! Off to St Michaels Mount, an island which you can only reach by foot when it's low tide. We checked out the tides first and were there in time to make 'the walk across' as the pictures shows. The mount has had a long history with wars and lots of changing owners, but the castle on it is now open for the public so we had to have a look around ofcourse! We took the boat back to the shore since the tide was too high to walk back once we finished. A lovely castle and a good morning out, so off to our afternoon programme: Lands End. We hoped the fog would've lifted once we got there, but it turned out to be a bit worse... as I said: mysterious pictures! By that time we were kind off peckish, so we had the traditional 'fish and chips' for a late lunch. We wanted to drive along the coast to have some nice views on the way back, but because of the weather that would not be worth the agony of driving on tiny B roads so we took the bigger road back and stopped off for some more shopping at a lidl :) There was a small animal farm near Land's End as well, so here is a cute piggy.

Back at the campsite we had some lovely foe yung hai and eggs and since we were back early we decided to go for a walk and try to find Castle Dore. Again the guide book said it was nice and about 4 km above Fowey. We asked at the camp site which way to go, but after about an hours' walk we still hadn't found anything and decided to as at a random campsite along the way, thanks to that nice lady we knew where to look because otherwise we would NEVER have found it... no signs, just a little one in the middle of the paddock. Yes, you read that, paddock. It turned out that cows were walking on the 'ruins' which were not more than just some hills and ditches in a paddock. Welcome to Castle Dore... ahum. Anyway it was a lovely evening, beautiful weather so a nice walk. We packed as much as we could because we had to leave early the next morning for a long drive towards the south of Wales with so much to see and do along the way.

We headed out very early in the morning in absolutely stunning weather and our first stop was at Chepstow to visit... Chepstow Castle. Yes, we like castles (and books, but you'll find out about that later). They don't really do a good job signposting in the UK.... lots of the time they just place a very small sign in a hedge along the road, just at the crossing, so when you finally spot it, it's too late to get on the right road/lane/crosspoint etc! Or they say at the beginning of a city: there are loads of carparks, or there are these things to see, but once you get into town, there are no signs of exactly where in town they are and which road you should take to find it. Same goes for Chepstow Castle, but we were lucky this time: we just accidentelly found it. Yep. We looked for the tourist information, found that after a while, I turned around at saw something that looked a lot like a castle. Closer inspection made clear it was THE castle we wanted to see. Whoehoe! This is in fact a ruine, but lots of it is still intact and they had some nice information signs on. Ofcourse there was an afternoon plan as well: Caerleon, a town with all kinds of Roman leftovers: a Roman army campsite, an amphitheater

, a bathhouse and last but not least: live excavations going on (which we didn't know until we got there, but it gave an extra touch to it all). We checked out everything and had a very interesting afternoon. The campite we were heading towards, Pencelli, tolds us by email not to arrive later than 5 in the afternoon. We didn't manage that (also due to a lack of signs again, so we just drove past it the first time), but were rather early compared to our normal routine. We cooked dinner, rice with Rogan Josh sauce which was waaaay tooooo hot (thank goodness for custard to calm the mouth and stomach) and then there was time to finally charge some batteries, write some postcards, make a plan for things to do in Wales, chat with one of our Irish neighbours etc. Oh and chill out haha.

The campsite was gorgeous, it was not cheap, but very well kept. The big downside was that there was only one block of showers/toilets and it was more than 5 min walk from the tentside, which sucks when you have to go to the loo in the middle of the night!!! We just drank little in the evenings to get rid of that problem hihi, but not handy anyway. Just some pictures to give you an impression of the campsite and our view from the tent. More stories later on!