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| At Heathrow Airport London Waiting for Rental Car Shuttle. |
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| London Motorway |
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| Darrell Driving on Two Way Country Road in England. Pedestrian Ahead. |
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| Our White Rental Car |
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| Hever Castle Grounds |
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| Hever Castle Grounds |
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| Hever Castle Grounds |
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| Darrell at Hever Castle |
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| Cool Tree at Hever Castle |
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| Bird Shrub at Hever Castle |
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| Inside Hever Castle |
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| Henry VIII Room at Hever Castle |
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| Old Woodwork at Hever Castle |
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| Hever Castle Grounds |
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| Spicy Chicken and Veg at Pembury Camden Arms Pub Restaurant |
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| Darrell's Fish Pie at Camden Arms Restaurant |
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| Smiles Together on Call with Son Jeremy and Grandson Quinn (age 5) in Brazil |
Saturday. 20. Arrive 6:30am into London’s Heathrow airport. Get bags and through customs.
Get info about where to go for rental cars. Decide we are way too early. Find a breakfast available at a Nero coffee shop that has fewer people at it and is quiet. Decide around 8:30 to go get our car earlier than Darrell’s appointment at 11am. Get to the bus stop and wait for our shuttle for an hour. Get to Enterprise rental and get into line. We are on the road by 10am. Darrell is the only driver on this trip as a way to save money. One driver also simplifies our tasks of who is doing what. I’m driver support! Lol. Keeping an extra eye out and following the navigation. While at the coffee shop, we also decided to stop at Hever Castle on our way to our Pembury Camden Arms hotel. We can’t check in until after 3pm so we have to find something to do. Darrell is paying attention to the driving and doing well with the opposite side of the road. He says that driving in New Zealand for 4 months really helped him adjust here quickly. I’m watching the navigation set in google maps for Hever Castle. We missed a couple of turns and got rerouted. The last few miles to get to the castle is on narrow roads. The long driveway back into the parking area is a tight one lane, but considered two directions. In these cases, there is always one driver who must give way to the other driver. The overall expectation is to be in control of your car, slow down, back up if you must, stay safe and considerate with all involved including other cars, pedestrians, animals, bicycles, etc. We arrive and enter the castle grounds through the paid ticket booth. There’s a craft and art fair set up in tents today. There is plenty of food trucks and a cafe to choose from for lunch or a snack. We walk through the beautiful gardens, past the castle that opens at 11am for tours, and on to a food truck for a light lunch. Darrell got a pita gyros and I got a chicken skewer. After eating, we took the castle tour. It dates back to the 13th century (1230 ish, if I remember). It’s tied to Anne Boleyn who was one of Henry the VIII’ths wives. She grew up here and Henry visited here and had a bedroom fitted out here. There are also special locks on the dining room that Henry had made and carried the keys to for his own security. Around 1900, the place was falling down and a wealthy American purchased it and poured loads of money into it and made it extravagantly livable for that era. He improved the grounds with beautiful gardens, the lake and an adjoining medieval village that is lived in and not on tour. In the 1960’s there was a flood that threatened the survival of the property. Some organization took it on to restore it and tell its stories. There’s a combination of stories and displays of the layered history here. We had beautiful weather and enjoyed the tour and the gardens as well as the walk around the lake. We left around 2:30 to go on to our Pembury hotel. We arrived and checked in. Darrell booked us a dinner table and we went to rest in our room. Dinner was very nice. The prices are higher than when we were here in 2022 and 2023. Each dinner cost was $30-40 USD. I set my alarm for 8am. Answered a couple of messages from church friends here. We have breakfast booked here at 8:30 and Hazel is picking us up at 9:45 for a ride to church and then to her house for lunch with a few others.
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| Sunday Morning Outside Camden Arms Hotel in Pembury |
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| Visiting with Church Friends at Hazel's House in Pembury for Lunch. Grace, Darrell and Paul |
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| Hazel and Debbie, Paul's Wife. |
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| Hazel at Her Pembury House |
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| Best Plum Season for Hazel's Late Mom's Tree. |
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| The Young Plum Tree at the House Where Hazel Grew Up in High Brooms |
Sunday. 21. We slept pretty well. Out of bed, exercises in our room, and ready for breakfast by 8:30. We walk through the hotel maze to get to the restaurant. Our table is set for breakfast. It’s so nice! There are less than 10 others also having the 8:30 breakfast at various tables. Once we finish our meal, we go back to our room for a few minutes before heading outside to wait for Hazel. Hazel lives in Pembury close to our hotel. She comes around and we get into her car after quick hugs hello. It’s been 2 ½ years since our last visit here although we see Hazel online each week in a Bible study for their congregation. We’ve been regular attenders since our first visit in 2022 when we met and found out about their Tuesday class. It has been something we look forward to with consistency as we are travelling about. We arrive to the church building and greet people who we have seen online each week, but haven’t seen in person for 2 ½ years. There are some new members here since then and we introduce ourselves and settle into class time with Jeremy teaching out of Psalms. His entire class is presenting scripture about who God is in contrast to Idols. It was very well done and encouraging. We then had a short break and then began with songs led by Larry and the communion. Then Darrell got up to preach is sermon on the “Spirit” : the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, Jesus’ Spirit and our spirit in contrast to our flesh. He’s been teaching this lesson where he goes and is invited to speak. After the conclusion of our worship, we went over to Hazel’s for lunch. She cooked for 6 of us. Debbie brought some mixed fruit and ice cream for dessert. We stayed all afternoon and then walked back to our hotel from her house. We rested and then went to our hotel restaurant for dinner before bed.
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| Full English Breakfast at Pembury Camden Arms |
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| Stonehenge Traffic and Our View From Our Car on the Motorway |
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| View of Stonehenge Driving By |
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| Motorway Driving West |
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| Lunch Stop at This National Trust Property: Stourhead |
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| Stourhead Grounds |
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| Stourhead Flowers |
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| Apple Tree Stourhead |
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| Two Way Road in Cornwall Driving Into Boscastle on the Coast |
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| Sitting Room in Our 100+year Old Family Cottage in Boscastle |
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| Comfy Bedroom in Our Boscastle Airbnb |
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| In Our Boscastle Cottage Airbnb |
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| Boscastle Cottage Airbnb |
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| Evening Sunset at Boscastle Bay with Swimmers. Close to Our Cottage |
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| Evening in Boscastle. Looking Toward Town. Evening Rowing Practice. |
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| Sunset at Boscastle Bay with Rowers Returning. |
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| Evening Walk in Boscastle Near Our Cottage |
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| Boscastle Waterway. Looking Toward Town. |
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| Evening Walk Returning from Dinner. Up Our Driveway to Our Cottage in Boscastle. |
Monday. 22. We woke up to have an 8:30 breakfast at the hotel and check out by 10am. Drive to Boscastle, Cornwall for a 4 night stay. This drive is about 5 ½ hours. Since we are in England, the roads and driving experience is very different for us than driving in the US. It is full of actively paying attention to the roads, the signs, the traffic and while all on the opposite side of our driving habit. Google maps helps a lot, but finding food, stops, fuel and anything is, at best, slightly different here from the US. On our route, we passed by the famous Stonehenge that we could see from the motorway. I took pictures from our car while Darrell kept his eyes on the road mostly! We stopped at a motorway service station for a restroom break. For lunch I found a National Trust Property on a google maps restaurant search called: Stourhead, to stop not far off of our motorway. It had a cafe where a simple lunch and snacks are served as well as good public toilets and a stately manor house and grounds to walk around. We did need to pay for parking and our simple lunch at the cafe. The break and the walk around the property was very nice. Our other stop was about 30 minutes before we reached our destination to get groceries. We stopped at a big Tesco grocery and purchased breakfast items. We arrived to our airbnb cottage by about 5:30pm. It took us a couple of tries in the small village to locate our correct road to turn on. Most tourist shops were closed and so people walking on the narrow lane wasn’t a problem at this time. We found our car space and our door entry details. We got inside. Looked around and then moved our items inside. Our host suggested that we walk out to the head of the trail to watch the sunset. After 7pm, the sun was almost down, we walked a short way back to our cottage and decided on a restaurant to go to for dinner. It is preferred here to book a table for dinner for your party. We had not booked a table. We walked over to a restaurant and went into the bar area to see if we could get dinner. She said that the dining room was fully booked, but we could pick a table in this room and order our meals at the bar. We picked a table then ordered from the menu and paid at the bar. We each had a nice meal served to our table. It was cold after dark. Our place has a space heater in the bedroom with a big comforter on the bed. We turned on the space heater and slept through the chilly night.
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| Our Front Door of Our Cottage is on the Back of the Building. The Coast is in the Background. |
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| Coastal Walk From Boscastle to Tintagel is Incredible!! |
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| Taking a Break on Our Coastal Walk to Tintagel. |
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| Coastal Walk Gate. Boscastle to Tintagel, Cornwall. |
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Amazing Decorative and Strong with Pupose. Cornwall Wall on Coastal Path.
Built long ago from local stone. |
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Going North from Boscastle on the Coastal Path.
Trying to Get a Better View of a Cliff side Waterfall. |
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Stone Steps Built into the Wall For Crossing on the Coastal Path
Between Boscastle and Tintagel, Cornwall |
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| Old Cobweb Pub in Boscastle for Dinner. The Ceiling Used to have Black Cobwebs! Yick! |
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| Darrell's Burger. My Baked Potato with Chili, Cheese and Salad. |
Tuesday. 23. In the morning, we got up, did our ab routine, dressed and cooked breakfast. Did some computer work. Around 10am we left for a coastal path walk south to Tintagel. The map says it takes 2 hours. The trail markers were not consistent about the distance. It turned out to be about 4 miles one way. We had a snack and water bottles with us. It was cold outside when we started. After the first 40 minutes, we were both removing our outer layers. About halfway we stopped to eat our snack of bananas and kind bars. We made it to Tintagel about 1pm and walked into the village and found a restaurant to eat lunch at. Once refreshed we were ready for our return walk. We made a little better time on our way back to Boscastle. We got back to our cottage about 4:30. We had tea. Sat and rested. I called and booked a dinner table for 5:30. We walked about 6 minutes to the restaurant and had dinner finished within the hour. We walked back to our cottage in time for our online Bible class at 7pm. We slept through the night.
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| Walking Uphill on the Coastal Right Near Our Boscastle Cottage. Heading North. |
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| Bright Beautiful Cornwall Coastal Path Near Boscastle. |
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| My Shadow Following Darrell on Cornwall Coastal Path 1.5 Miles North of Boscastle. |
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Darrell's Picture of this Cliff Waterfall on Coastal Path.
Very Close to Boscastle Farm Shop and Cafe. |
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| At the Boscastle Farm Shop and Cafe for Local Scone, Jam and Clotted Cream. |
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| Another Gorgeous Sunset at Boscastle, Cornwall |
Wednesday. 24. We woke up about 7am, exercised and cooked breakfast. We booked a table for 12:30 for coffee and scones at the Farm Cafe a mile walk north on the coastal path. We saw some great pictures of a waterfall coming off a cliff about 15 minutes from the cafe. Turns out that we could only see some of the waterfall from a long way off. Our cameras and our angle to the falls wasn’t great. It was cool to see it as we did. The path and the ups and downs were amazing, challenging and enjoyable in the sunny weather today. We got to the cafe about noon and got seated and served the Cornwall gold standard scone with jam and clotted cream. We had very good coffee too. While there we shopped and purchased a Cottage Pie for our dinner along with some radishes. We walked back over the coastal path to our cottage. We were so full from our scone adventure that we didn’t eat until dinner time. We worked on our computers. I purchased timed tickets online for Tintagel castle tomorrow at 10am. We plan to drive the few minutes over to that village. I walked 5 minutes into Boscastle and purchased a souvenir tea towel and a chocolate bar. After dinner we walked out to the ocean to watch tonight's sunset. The rest of the evening is reading, computer work, stretching and getting ready for bed.
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| At Tintagel. Following Path to Castle Ruins. |
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| View of English Heritage Site for Tintagel Castle. The 2019 Bridge Spans a Gap that Fell in the 1500's. |
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| View of Tintagel Castle Ruins from Higher on the Mainland. |
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| Stunning Views from Tintagel Castle Ruins. Waterfall Below. Fancy Hotel Across. |
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| Tintagel Castle Ruins Walk and View Toward Mainland. |
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| Darrell's Pose with Sculpture at Tintagel Castle Ruins. |
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| Tintagel Castle Ruins Coast Looking South. |
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| Going Down to the Beach at Tintagel Castle |
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| Beach Below Tintagel Castle with Merlin's Cave |
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| Tide Dependant Beach at Tintagel Castle. |
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| Merlin's Cave at Tintagel Castle Beach |
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| Tintagel Castle Ruins Above |
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| Our Feet at Tintagel Castle Beach |
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| Pretty Rocks At Tintagel Castle Beach |
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| Lunch in Tintagel. My Beef Stew was Fabulous! |
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| Street in Tintagel, Cornwall |
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| Sign to Old Property that We Didn't Tour |
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| Tintagel Old Post Office. |
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| Sunset Near Our Boscastle Cottage |
Thursday. 25. I slept pretty well. I’ve been waking up around 4am and telling myself that it’s time to sleep some more. I then wake up again around 6 or 6:30. We were both aching this morning from all of our trail hiking. Darrell was especially sore in his calves. I gave him a leg massage while he was on his yoga mat on the floor. I worked hard enough to feel like I got a good workout! Lol. It was well after 7 and we decided to do a few individual stretches and get dressed for the day. We got our breakfast cooked and were ready to drive to Tintagel by about 8:30. It’s only 4 miles but it’s slow going with the narrow village roads and the fact that it’s new territory for us. We arrived to a parking lot in Tintagel about 9am. After trying 2 different ways to pay for parking through an app and also at the electronic kiosk, we decided along with a couple other people to change parking lots. We drove closer to the English Heritage Tintagel castle site and easily got a parking lot space that was $2 cheaper. It was 9:30 and our timed ticket was for 10am. We walked down a steep hill to the entry point near the amazing engineered bridge that was finished in 2019. We were 10 minutes early and took a path next to the entry but going up a steep hill for a view of the site. We were back to the gated entry about 10 minutes later. We followed the tour stops through the castle ruins. The original castle was built in the early 1200’s. 70 years after that it was in need of renovations, and that was done. I think it was about in 1400 that there was massive land collapse where this new bridge is now connecting the land masses. The land was connected in the past. It’s been a difficult property to maintain and to visit because there is so much heavy surf, heavy winds, rocky cliffs, steep ups and downs, etc. The new bridge made the visit much easier to enjoy and not use our energy for climbing all at the beginning of our visit! Lol. This castle is linked to the King Arthur tales, and it is still unknown if he was a real person. It’s suspected that he was a real person, and the tales of King Arthur were expanded and made more fanciful in the retelling by a particular writer in the 12th century, Geoffrey of Monmouth who wrote: History of the Kings of Britain. Since this tale was spread it seems like there have been more added to it and the mix of legend and myth has been difficult to pull apart. We enjoyed our walk around the ruins especially since it was sunny and fairly mild for what it could be! It was amazing to randomly get this beautiful weather. It was amazing to look up and down the scenic coast. Down below us was the small beach covered in high tide water. There was a waterfall coming off of one cliff that was heavy and visible for pictures. Towards the end of the castle ruins, is the exit doorway to the long and steep wooden staircase leading down to the beach, to Merlin’s cave and the shifting tide. We were able to go all the way down to the beach and get a quick picture inside the cave. Then we came back up one level to the English Heritage cafe for a coffee, a restroom, a gift shop and a Tintagel castle history exhibit. Once we were all finished, we climbed the steep hill back up to town. We arrived back in town about noon. We went to a pharmacy to get some muscle rub stronger than our Tiger Balm! Lol. Then we went into a grocery store to get some lozenges. We decided that we may want to buy some food for dinner so we would come back after lunch. We selected a restaurant that had a reasonable menu. I ordered the Beef stew and Darrell got the Fisherman’s basket. This was an order and pay at the bar with your table number. They quickly brought out our dinners. My stew was very delicious, and better than I expected. After Lunch we walked over to the grocery and decided against buying our dinner. We bought some lozenges and went to our car to drive back to Boscastle. On the way back, the traffic was light so it was fairly easy until the last turn up to our drive way. This is a very narrow one lane with tourists walking in it. These tourists have baby strollers, dogs on leashes, and right of way. They were helpful to move aside as possible for us to get through and on up a hill to our cottage. We spent the afternoon talking to Darrell’s mom, drinking tea, and reading. I’ve been working on this diary, editing photos, having some text conversations, and other general things. Around 6pm we cooked our last meal here. It was basically a repeat of breakfast with added cheeses. Darrell got some scenic stopping advice from our friend Paul for our drive tomorrow. We picked out a breakfast restaurant and booked a table online for tomorrow morning at 8:30. We have a plan for checking out in the morning, packing up our things and driving to Bournemouth for a one night stay before our cruise embarkation on Saturday afternoon.
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| Sidmouth Beach Walk on Road Trip Day |
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| Sidmouth Beach Walk |
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| A Unique Property on Our Sidmouth Beach Walk |
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| Bumper to Bumper Traffic on Our Drive to Bournemouth |
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| Laundrette in Bournemouth |
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| Bournemouth Pub Hotel Overnight Stay |
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| Bournemouth Overnight Stay. Room to Spread Out. |
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| Dinner at Spyglass in Bournemouth. Steak, Colcannon Potatoes, Salad |
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| Eton Mess with Mixed Berries. A Good One. |
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| Music on Friday Night at Spyglass. |
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| On Our Way Out of Spyglass at 7am Saturday. |
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| A Second Sign at Front Door of Spyglass. |
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| Entry Door for Spyglass and Kettle Bournemouth. |
Friday. 26. Got up early and left Boscastle. Filled the car with fuel. Got breakfast at Strawberry Fields Cafe. Drove to Sidmouth, parked the car and took a seaside walk. Drove on to Bournemouth. There was a lot of long traffic lines because of diverted traffic with roadworks happening. We drove through Boscastle and experienced at least 25 traffic circles, but it could have been twice that many. I lost count and just tried to help by watching the directions, the lanes and the traffic. We arrived at our Spyglass Hotel stay around 2:30 pm. It’s a pub with a restaurant and rooms upstairs. While checking in we were told that the band starts at 9pm! It did. It was very loud. We had just turned out the lights. The first song was “Sweet Home Alabama”. We laughed a lot! I fell asleep by the 3rd or 4th song.
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