Coast to Coast and back again

We need to get out and about today after our restful day yesterday. We also needed water and a loo drop – both kindly supplied by the Britannia Inn bless them!

Having sampled the South Cornwall coast yesterday we thought we would go and look at the Atlantic today. I had located an interesting car park at Chapel Porth which was listed on Search 4 Sites as a wild camping spot and so we knew it was accessible in a motorhome and being run by the National Trust would be free to us. So off we went through the rain along the A390 around St Austell and Truro. Disaster struck as we drove through Truro – the wipers stopped completely!! Fortunately this happened a few minutes after the worst of the rain had stopped so we pressed on to our planned stop at Chapel Porth intending to sort it out there and make some calls if we need help with it. What I had forgotten is that this place is in a deep valley between high cliffs so there was no connection atall. However our troubles were somewhat overshadowed by the sight of the Vauxhall Vivaro based motorhome who had got just a little too close to the beach!! Apprently it happened yesterday and the van had been there all night. I hope they did not try and sleep in it!! The RAC tried to recover them yesterday and failed and this morning a recovery Land Rover was trying to winch the van back on to firm ground but that also failed. Just as we were leaving a large flatbed truck with hiab crane managed to lift them back on to the car park.

I investigated the wipers and established the problem was between the motor and the wipers – the motor worked so the fuse was good but it was failing to drive the blades. Time to call the AA – but how? After a conflab we decided to enjoy our morning and have a walk along the cliffs and see if there was a better connection once we got up above the valley floor. The views were stunning and the big Atlantic rollers were making a big old fuss as they broke against the cliffs and rushed up the sandy beach. Sadly there was still no signal however high we climbed.

Time to move on back to civilisation and get the wipers fixed before the rain started again. We also need to call the Britstop for this evening and check they had room for us. We parked in Tesco’s car park right beside the River Fal in Truro and called out the AA who were with us within the hour and had the wipers fixed in 10 minutes! Apparently it was just a loose retaining nut that was allowing the actuating arm to come off the drive shaft splines – no damage and no new parts needed. As the AA chap was fixing it there was a flash of lightning immediately followed by the crash of thunder and the heavens opened – torrential rain for 10 minutes and we all got soaked!

Our Britstop tonight is Humfrey’s Farm Shop at Tregony just east of Truro on the Roseland Peninsular. We stopped at the Farm Shop and went in and introduced ourselves and bought some veg and nice looking loaf of bread and were directed to drive on down the lane to farm. “Just drive until you can’t go any further” were the instructions and that was spot on. In fact the Britstop field is 500m from the shop and is next to the farmhouse. There is plenty of space for at least 5 vans although most of it is a bit slopey so you want to get here early. We were the first and so could nab the only level spot. Another, larger, brand new van arrived about a hour later but there are just the two of us here tonight. We had a good natter to Nick, the farmer, and we asked about staying two nights which was fine with him. There is water here so we can have showers tonight and there is plenty of internet so we can catch up with emails and I can update the blog.

Mileage reading tonight:	120675 kms
Mileage reading at home:	119740 kms
Mileage today:	80 kms
Mileage total:	935 kms