Coastal Path Walk from Port Quin to Lundy Bay via Epphaven Cove, Cornwall

Port Quin has a lovely harbor where many launch kayaks and enjoy the view.

The kayakers look like little specks in the distance on this photo.

Port Quin was a fishing village back in the day. Their male population got wiped out on a fishing expedition gone wrong (strong storms). As a result the remaining villagers (widows and their children) left Port Quin to go live elsewhere. Today you can see traces of the fishing industry in the form of fish cellars near the harbor. Those cellars have been converted to holiday cottages. Today there are mostly cottages and vacation homes in Port Quin. The only eating establishment is a food trailer in the car park. There are no public restrooms around and only 1 water spigot to refresh (with drinkable water).

The coastal path leads in 2 directions from here. In one direction you head towards Port Isaac. In the other you head towards Doyden Castle, Epphaven Cove, Lundy Bay all the way to Pentire Point and the Rumps.

Today I will write about heading towards the latter (Epphaven and Lundy). I have not hiked past that point yet (to Pentire Point). Next time...

From Port Quin Harbor head up a steep road to your left. It is quite a hill, but fortunately around the curve you find a stile on your right. Climb over it. Signs are there saying National Trust Doyden.

From here you can either take the short cut or long cut to Doyden Castle. The short cut is a straight shot by taking the path on your left (seen in the photo above). The long cut takes you on a circuitous path to the castle (the path straight ahead in the photo). Both will take you to Doyden Castle.

This castle was built as an extravagant holiday home and is now rented out at an extravagant rate.

More recently it has been recognized as the filming location on the tv show Doc Martin when the deranged Mrs. Tishell held Doc Martin's baby hostage.

Follow the coastal path past the castle and you will run across 2 open mine shafts (barely fenced off).

They are part of Doyden Point Mine or Gilson's Cove Mine (2 names for the same place). These mines contained silver-lead (antimony) and a little copper. I am always reminded of the TV series Poldark and the mines along the Cornish coast. The main difference is the lack of buildings here to support the mine.

These are deep mines. If you shout down in them you hear the echo back.

The view walking onward to Epphaven and Lundy is spectacular. You walk up and down cliffs with beautiful views of the water below.

Here is Epphaven Cove below in the photo. Notice all the green vegetation covering the rocks. There was not as much green last year. The only way to get down to the beach is by scrambling down the rocks. With all the green slippery rocks and the high tide we decided against heading down this year. It is a rocky beach. Don't expect sand. Last year I was able to safely scramble down the rocks and sit by the water. Not this year.

 

As you keep following the path you reach the next cove called Lundy Bay. Fortunately there are stairs leading down to this rocky beach. We also were there at high tide, so the one little sandy strip of land I found last year was under water this year.

This photo shows Lundy from above (from the path). Look carefully to see the stairs.

We were able to get to the bottom of the stairs and scramble on the rocks to get closer to the water.

The tide was high and the spray on the rocks magnificent.

Both Epphaven and Lundy are in adjacent coves along the coastal path. You can see both coves in the photo below. The nearest cove is Epphaven. The next one along is Lundy.

 

If you keep going on the coastal path beyond Lundy you can reach Pentire Point and the Rumps (big out crop of rocks by themselves in the water). I think it is another 2 1/2 miles to the point from Lundy. The sign post will say. To me it looks farther. Next time I want to hike to the point. You can see the point and the Rumps in the photo below.

I enjoy this hike from Port Quin to Epphaven and Lundy. It has a lot of uphill and downhill, but the views of the water are amazing.

Port Isaac, Cornwall - full of charm and Doc Martin fanatics

Port Isaac has a lot to offer - fantastic scenery, great food, wonderful music and the set of the Doc Martin tv series before your very own eyes. Even after 4 trips out there I never get tired of the place.

In the following photos I will show you what there is to like about Port Isaac.

The harbor. One of the first sights you will encounter.

The break waters.

Standing on the closest break water and looking back at the harbor and the side of the hill. Yes, at low tide you can walk out to the break water and climb up the ladder to the top. What a fantastic view back towards the village.

And the view from the break water looking towards the sea.

Oh the view of the harbor from Roscarrock Hill.

And then there is the food and drink at our favorite pub The Golden Lion (called "The Crab and Lobster" in the Doc Martin tv series). Here are a few examples.

Above - Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer, a favorite of my husband.

Above - clotted cream panna cotta (vanilla) with strawberries and shortbread, a favorite of mine.

The pub from the street.

The balcony (the best place to sit if you can find a spot - often hard).

The view from the balcony.

The best ice cream in the whole world, Roskillys, is found here on Fore Street, across from the School House. If they have salty caramel, try it. Flavors rotate. I find the fruit flavors to be muted and not real powerfully fruity.

We have such wonderful dairy (clotted cream and ice cream) because of our friends here.

Great music in Port Isaac. A few examples. Look out for music performed at the harbor (often on Friday evenings in the summer). You might find a brass band playing or the Fisherman's Friends singing (a local group of guys singing shanties). Not to be missed!  Look those guys up on Facebook to find out where and when they will be singing. We met one of the guys a few years ago when we stayed at his B&B in Port Isaac. For more great music in the Port Isaac area during the summer and Easter time, look up the St. Endellion Festival concerts at St. Endellion church, 2 miles outside the village of Port Isaac. I have played in the summer festival the past 4 summers. Not much better quality of classical music can you find anywhere and at such a beautiful church. www.endellionfestivals.org.uk

Stay tuned to this blog for more on the summer festival from 2015. Below - St. Endellion Church.

Now on to Doc Martin the tv series without which I would not have discovered Cornwall.

Port Isaac has become more of a tourist destination thanks to this tv show that was filmed partially in the village. Anyone who has seen the show will recognize the harbor, Doc's surgery, the school house and Bert's restaurant and van. Here is a more obscure photo taken of one of the sites of the police station. 

For the best resource of finding where scenes from Doc Martin were filmed, go to www.portwennonline.com. Someone has done very thorough research to discover all the filming locations for 6 series of Doc Martin.

Port Isaac is a true Cornish treasure. May you all get to go there some day!

Bletchley Park

World War II. Code breakers. Bletchley Park. Alan Turing. Imitation Game. Benedict Cumberbatch. Ring a bell? Bletchley Park was the headquarters (during WWII ) in England for the deciphering of encoded messages sent by the enemy.

I thought Bletchely could not be too far from London, so I looked it up. At just about an hour train trip from London's Euston railway station we were set to take off for Bletchley. If two people take the train and visit the museum at Bletchely Park you can get in 2 for 1 admission by showing your train ticket. You have to find the voucher online at the museum's website and print it out. The bonus too is that the museum ticket is good for 1 calendar year. So if you get a chance to go back within a year, you can do so for free by showing the museum ticket. Once you arrive at the train station, follow the signs leading to Bletchely Park. It is not far by foot.

As you approach Bletchley Park on foot you see these buildings.

The grey building contains the ticket windows and a few exhibits about the park.

You can pick up a free audio guide in the main room. I am afraid we blew by that and neglected to do so. I am sure it can be helpful to listen to. However there are good written out descriptions at each stopping point. 

The property is a bit spread out, so be prepared to do some walking. There is the main mansion to visit as well as many huts scattered about with displays in them.  In the mansion make sure to find an employee who can give you a pass to take a free guided tour at a specific time. We did the tour after looking around on our own. The tour gives you a good overview of the huts, but you would want to go back and look at the exhibits in more detail on your own time.

Here is the main mansion.

The grounds are lovely with the pond. While you were working at Bletchley Park during WWII they thought it important to have nice places to relax and repose. In the winter the workers would sometimes skate on this pond if it was completely frozen.  Otherwise picnics beside it were fine too.

Above is a close up of the mansion.

The main room of the mansion contained an exhibit on the movie "The Imitation Game". A few scenes were filmed on site, including the scenes inside the bar. Otherwise the movie was filmed elsewhere.

Here is the bar from the movie set.

In addition to this set, there were costumes from the movie on display.

If you saw the movie "The Imitation Game", then you will remember Commander Denniston who was in charge and responsible for the hiring of the code breakers, including Alan Turing.  Here is a mock up of his office. I don't think this was the actual location of his office in reality or in the movie. It simply shows you what it would have looked like.

In his office was posted this plaque about the involvement of the United States in the code breaking going on at Bletchley Park. I had no idea that we helped out here during and after the war with this gathering of intelligence.

As you leave the mansion you will see many different huts. These were where the code breakers were stationed. Some of the huts have displays in them. Others are closed to the public. Make sure you find hut A where Alan Turing's office was located. You can see his office like he left it. It was pretty bare.

He had his trusty typewriter, a desk and his coffee mug that he chained to the radiator so it would not be stolen.

Here is a photo of the entrance gate where workers would enter the park. The actual entrance gate was further down the same street. This is a view of the gate from inside the complex.

In one of the huts there was a display on dispatch riders. Their job during the war was to deliver intercepted enemy messages (coming through in Morse code) from nearby listening stations to Bletchley Park. The riders did the transporting of these messages via motorcycles. The riders were not concerned with the content of the messages and did not necessarily know exactly what kind of information they were delivering. Their job was to be efficient in getting the message back to Bletchley Park. From there the messages were passed on to the code breakers to decipher.

In another building is a working model of Turing's machine "The Bombe" that was used to figure out the settings on the German's enigma machine in order to decipher the German's messages. Since all the decoding machines were dismantled after the war, this is a replica.

The enigma machine that the German military used to send their messages in secret code to their colleagues.  

 

The next series of photos will show you how the whole process worked from intercepting a coded message to decoding it. Rather than write out all of this info, I decided to take photos of the text on the walls.

As you can see, this was a very involved process to get the coded messages deciphered. It involved many people who were responsible for very specific tasks. They did not know what type of work their colleagues were doing at Bletchley Park. It was forbidden to talk about your job responsibilities to anyone. When they all worked together the results were a deciphered message. Only the higher ups at Bletchely Park knew how the whole process worked from start to finish to decipher messages. The Germans changed the settings of the enigma machine every day, so it was a constant challenge to keep up with deciphering messages. 

For a wonderful video on Bletchely Park, go to youtube and search "Bletchley Park" and choose Bletchely Park Tour (a full documentary around 1 hour long). There are other shorter videos on the topic as well.

It is well worth visiting this place. Alllow a full day if you want to be thorough. We did.