Friday 22nd June.
It was lovely to see the sun again for our last full day in Falmouth, Mark had booked in for a morning bike ride with Tony, found through a contact from the Devon Cycle Club, I was going to walk and then we planned to use the afternoon to go for a drive and do some sight-seeing.
We set off at about midday to go in search of some more Poldark sites and chose the Wheal Leisure mine site thinking that would offer us a dose of some spectacular scenery. On walking to the car we noticed a huge naval ship entering the port and trying to park and I was glad to see that they struggle with this issue here too! There aren’t too many 4-wheel drive cars in this part of the world; they’re all small cars as that is all that will fit on most of the roads in this area!
The Poldark mine site is set at Botallack on the west Cornish coast; about an hour drive from Falmouth. I had picked up Mark’s lurgy so managed to snooze for some of the trip but luckily Mark was alert for the drive. My research had revealed the site was a bit hard to find but we were lucky in that, by the time our Sat Nav cut out and we were a bit lost, we found ourselves right there! We parked the car and went in to The Count House, this had been the admin building for the mine during the its working life but is now owned and managed by the National Trust, and was where we picked up a walking map of the site. So, off we set with a very poor map indeed that offered little useful information, namely, which of the numerous structures was the Poldark mine. I must have cut a strange figure as I had, stupidly, dressed for the day and dinner: black tights, top, leather jacket with makeup and bling earrings to match, whereas everyone else was in their hiking gear! Anyway, luckily for us, I had Googled some images of the Poldark series and used these to spot the Wheal Leisure mine….off in the distance. Hence the happy snaps below. You could spend hours hiking here out but, with our Poldark photos in hand, we set off for home via St Just, a cute little village near Botallack, Penzance (from ‘Pirates of’ fame) and Gweek, a small village but location of a large seal colony. We had thought we could see the seals on a beach or similar but we needed to pay 15 GBP each for the pleasure so, we passed on that.
Our one and only dinner out for Falmouth was to be tonight at Rick Steins Fish. I’m hoping it is worth it! PS: It was! Great food!
A big visitor arrived today! 
Poldark territory! 
Spectacular Cornish coast. 
Just beautiful! 
I wasn’t game to go down there! 
The Poldark ‘Wheal Leisure’ mine. 
Mine as seen on the TV show. 
We found it! 
Botallack mine: aka ‘Wheal Leisure’ 
Us at the Poldark mine site. 
Scary roads that I won’t miss! 
Sea Shanty Festival; Falmouth. 
Dinner at Rick Steins Fish, Falmouth. 
A busy vibe. 
Only in Cornwall! 
This is obviously a good take away joint!