Sunday morning and what could be finer than to be on holiday in Scilly. Not too much! Looks like a fine day and we have a golf cart to go pick up and drive around. After our breakfast, we headed towards town and I stopped at the beach while hubby went on up the hill to pick up our golf cart. When he came back to get me, we stopped and bought a T shirt and then back up to the north end of the island to find some other burial sites.
We went as far as possible and parked behind another golf cart and started down the path towards the sea. Couldn't really get lost and we had two options, left or right by the sea or through the woods. We chose seaside walk. We are actually rather high above the sea but we can hear people on the beach below us, playing in the water. Nutty people because that is cold water! Trooping on, we move onto a more narrow path and pretty soon our pant legs are wet with the left over rain and mud
. Seems like we are having to walk a very long way to find this burial chamber but we finally spot some rocks on the hill about 1/4 mile ahead of us and figure that's where we are headed. Yep. that's the spot.
This is the Innisdgen Burial Chambers. According to our Scilly Cart Map, there are two chambers. We are coming from the lower seaside path and climb up the hill to the chamber we can see which has a sign designating it as the "Upper Burial Chamber". Nothing else is in view except a very, very long hanging rope swing from one of the trees.
We are standing on the north end of St. Mary's again but on the other side of the north end from where we were yesterday at the Halangy ruins. Once again, we are high on a hillside and the views are just incredible. The water below us is so clear that it's very difficult to tell how deep it is as you can see to the bottom. There are some sailboats in the breezes and a few small fishing boats just floating along doing their thing.
The actual chamber sits at the bottom of a set of rocks that have been climbed frequently for looking out to sea so I climb up the rocks and from this slightly higher view point, I can see another set of rocks further down the hill and to the right of the upper chamber
. Must be the lower chamber. So we head off in that direction. As we are going there, we pass several directional signs showing how to get to these chambers. great. had we come from the forest route, we would have known where we were going.
The lower chamber is just as interesting as the upper one and we enjoy exploring it for a bit. But by now, I've walked much more than I should have and am not looking forward to the return journey to our golf cart. We study the map to see how to get to the other trail through the forest to get back to our cart and along comes a couple with their dog. They seem to be a local couple so they point us in the right direction to get back via a simpler route. We start to follow their directions and come to a fork in the trail and haven't a clue which fork to take. Luckily, they are already coming back on their walk and point out, again, which direction to go. I'm wishing that we could keep up with them so we don't have to make a choice again on where to go but not so lucky. This trail had another two places where we could have made the wrong choice and ended up back at the ocean but we managed to suss out the correct direction and made it back to the road. We had known that we would come out about 1/4 mile away from our golf cart. Hubby went to get the cart and come back for me but there wasn't any place for me to stand and wait really so I started walking after him
.
I got to the duck pond and there were ducklings playing in a puddle. A whole pond and where do they play - in the mud puddle. There is a lot of racket down the road and some loud beeps - the large truck sounds of backing up. I get to the next corner and there is a whole crew of people cutting the verge and branches over the road and there's my hubby, steering his golf cart around them all on his way to get me!
Our bed and breakfast hostess had told us one of the best places to eat was Juliette's which is across the harbor from them and has a wonderful terrace where you can eat outside and watch the harbour. We didn't think much of having to walk over there at night and then we saw signs that said they were fully booked until Wednesday anyway (a lot of weddings on the Isles this week) but didn't look like they were booked at lunch so we thought we'd stop there.
The wind was blowing and it was a bit chilly but we were determined to sit outside with the rest of the hearty people and enjoy the harbor view
. We tucked ourselves into a table that was next to the back wall and ordered our lunch which included chips and some fancy hot coffees.
As we are sitting there watching the Scillonian Ferry arrive at the harbor and eating our food, we notice there are a great many small birds sitting around us, on the ground, on the wall, and very pointedly watching us eat our chips. I'm a sucker for just about anything that flies or is furry so pretty soon we are "accidentally dropping" bits of chips for the birds. I think they got most of our chips. And like most critters, they knew when the food was gone and went off to another table. it was a good lunch with a good view though so enjoyable.
Back to our cart and as we are driving over to Old Town, I see a potter's place and we pull in but as it is Sunday, he was closed. First time we realized what day it was. We park at Old Town Harbor and walk down to the beach and find some sea glass. Walking very slowly along the beach and bending over a lot to pick up small bits of glass is not really in my hubby's wheelhouse of favorite things to do so we finished that up quickly and headed back to Hugh Town
.
I want to stop at the Co-op grocery store (the only one in St. Mary's) for some drinks and maybe a bedtime snack. Being the only grocery store, it is so packed with people and the shelves are very empty. I fight my way into the store and around to find some drinks and a couple of other items and queue to pay. The locals must know to avoid the store on a Sunday because it looks like just a lot of tourists trying to stock up on beer before the night. When we have come in on the days when the locals shop, it is early morning when the shelves have been stocked and they fill up an entire grocery cart with their shopping. I think I would go crazy to only have this small store as my choice for all my groceries. A lot of them go once a month or so to the mainland and really stock up in Penzance.
Again, we have pretty much finished for the day so hubby takes back the cart after he drops me at the steps of our BnB and walks back by himself. Again, what a man! Some more feet up time before we head for the Bishop and Wolf for dinner tonight. There are enough places where you can eat at a different restaurant every night for a week or more, easily
. We had also seen last night that there is a fish and chips wagon that stops at the beach by the tourist information office. They aren't there on Sunday night but we think we'll eat on the beach tomorrow night.
Dinner is good and filling and then back to the BnB for another good night's sleep but no stars. In spite of only doing about one main thing a day, we are clicking off the time here at a rapid pace, it seems.
No comments:
Post a Comment