Day 11 - St Just, the Levant Mine, Lands End, St Michaels Mount and a drive thru Mousehole

What a different day!  Sun greeted us when we got up.  We had a visit from a friendly cat! Apparently a visitor!  We had a big day planned.  Part of my mother's family comes from Cornwall.  I believe in the St Just area which is close to Land's End.  So, after breakfast we set off!  This time we could see the landscape!!!!

St Just is a lovely little town, and we got out and had a wander thru two of the church yards.  The Methodist Church graveyard was quite big and we did find a couple of Matthews, both Johns.  We had some lunch at a lovely little cafe.  I had garlic and herb mushrooms with cheese toast, it was really delicious.  We really have had some really good food, but generally the food at the big attractions is pretty ordinary!  Funnily enough, I haven't seen any craft shops, tho to be fair, I haven't been looking... As we drove into St Just, what do I se, but a craft shop!  Selling fabric, wool and haberdashery!  What a pity it was shut!!!!

One of the best things we've bought is a National Trust membership, which lets us get entry to their properties.  We've had a lovely time visiting their properties.  Just outside St Just is the Levant Mine and Beam Engine.  This was such a good visiting place.  The mine is amazing.  Tin and copper were mined here and the mine shafts extend over a mile under the sea floor of the Atlantic Ocean.  There was a good film about the site including vision from underground.  They also have the last working steam engine.  Because the mine shafts were so deep there was a lift to allow the miners to get in and out of the mine.  In 1919 there was an accident when the lift broke and 32 men died.  There were two men named Matthews killed, one was a Nicholas J Matthews, I think Nicholas James was a family name.  I shall have to some research.  My grandfather's family of course was in Australia before this!

There are the remains of mines all around the southern tip of Cornwall.  It was one a short distance to Land's End, so we drove down and had a look.  It costs £3 to park at Land's End and there is a constant stream of people.  The weather was a bit claggy here.  But a must do...

When we had lunch the cafe at St Just had a visitors book.  The people who were there when we went in had unbeknownst to us just finished walking from John O'Groats to Land's End to celebrate their 70th year!  What a feat.

We were running quite late by now because we had spent so long at St Just and the Levant Mine, we didn't have time to get to Mount St Michael and go over to the island, so we decided to just go and have a look.  It looks amazing from Marazion.  We sat in the very warm us and enjoyed the view.

We were near Penzance and thought we'd go and visit Mousehole before we headed home.  Peter is a great driver, BUT he has a couple of quirks...  He can't change his destination without a lot of warning and if we are going somewhere, we are going there and nowhere else!!!  (Except... When we were going to Chawton to see Jane Austin's house we saw the turn off very late and he surprised the life out of me by making the turn where he would normally sail past...!!!!!  So, I quite often miss out on things I think would be nice because we "can't" turn off, change direction.  And don't get to take photos of all the things/buildings I would like to.

This time, Mousehole has the most amazing narrow roads and nowhere to park in the village, so it was just a drive thru!!!!  We missed the parking before the village...

We had had a big day, so decided to drive home and have biscuits and cheese and the scones Sharon had left for us for tea...  All this travelling is very tiring!