If you’re locked up in a tower, he does rescues on the hour …

Tintagel Castle from the north, showing bridge out onto the headland.

Friday 2 Oct

The real test for you today is to see who recognises the quote in the heading. This one’s really obscure, folks. (I’m curious to know if anyone recognises it. Please post if you do!)

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a cartoon series, made in Australia (which is unusual in itself), called Arthur and the Square Knights of the Round Table. I have only a vague recollection of it now, but it was a slightly absurdist, funny show with a lisping Sir Lancelot and a hip King Arthur, extremely loosely based on the Arthurian legends (i.e., if you can call using the characters’ names and not much else “loosely based”!). I do, however, remember snatches of the theme song, which included the lines in the heading. The opening line went something like “Arthur, the king of Camelot, He’s a ringing-dinging-swingingest king”. (This relies on me recalling correctly something that I may not have heard correctly. Therefore, it’s probably wrong! UPDATE: You can listen to the theme song here. I was wrong-ish.)

Anyway, today I visited Tintagel castle on the west coast of Cornwall. Legend has it that Arthur was conceived here, although if all the legends are to be believed the guy had a castle in every corner of England, is buried in at least 15 different places, and managed to find several Excaliburs from various candidate lakes. [21 Oct — Corrigendum: He got Excalibur from a STONE, you idiot, and THEN it got chucked in a lake. Or not. ]

The ruins at Tintagel, ancient though they are (1200s), actually post-date Arthur, although this is not to say that they weren’t built on something older still, and there is strong evidence of its use as early as 400AD. There are certainly sea caves around, one of which is purportedly Merlin’s (if all the legends are to be believed about him then the guy could have started a real estate agency specialising in caves: “Renovators’ delight: nice little north-facing complex, mostly dry, limited natural light, secure refuge during high tides”!)).

Tintagel is in two parts. One part sits out on a headland, connected to the mainland by a steep and narrow isthmus. The other part is on the cliffs on the mainland. In the left photo above, you can see the headland section which has the crenelated wall section from the photo on the right, visible just above the zig-zagging in the path; to the left of the dark grey layer of rock on the right of the photo you can maybe make out the mainland section. The vertical photo to your right (number 4 on the page) is a view of the mainland section from the headland, perched atop a cliff edge that has already partly fallen away: you can see a grassy courtyard at the top of the steps, and then to the right and higher there is an upper “ward”.

(I’ve been a bit disappointed with the documentation for visitors at these places: you pay to go in, which is fine, but you get nothing for this but the admission. You can, of course, spend $8 on a glossy booklet that is too nice to throw away and too heavy to cart back to wherever, but there’s no other option. I want the $2 choice: a little pamphlet with a map and a potted summary—sort of the Reader’s Digest version for cheapskates with too much luggage!)

The castle environs were quite extensive, though very little remains of most of the buildings apart from foundation walls about 50cm high. There are a few larger walls and structures, the most extensive of which are near that crenelated wall (also close to where the photo below with me in it was taken) and also in the upper ward section (photo below without me in it). I must say that I do quite like slate as a building material; it gives a castle such a baroque feel!*

I have just read that the 1200s section of Tintagel was built mainly to capture the loyalty of the Cornishmen, and that it had little strategic value. In fact, I have been wondering about castles and their strategic value, since they can only act as a stronghold for people and a place from which one’s soldiers can sally forth (and then retreat to safety again). The surrounding land—including farms and thus supplies—is only protected in so far as one has a strong enough army to do the sallying forth to scare away the invaders who might otherwise wait patiently, munching their way through one’s paddocks.

Clearly I am not fit for commanding a castle!

There were more owls today (this is for Mum, who has an extensive collection); this time on the window ledge of a house in Tintagel. It’s the lady beetles that really freak me out, however!

While I was in Tintagel I bought a Cornish pasty, since I figured I should have one while I was still in Cornwall. However, my parking time was about to run out, and so I checked out my list of caches to see if there was anything nearby where it would be nice to have lunch and with free parking (cf. earlier comment about cheapskates). Bingo. Rocky Valley sounded just the spot.

There were two caches to be found. The first was by an old ruined mill site, shown above. There was lots of ivy and moss, and a delightful little creek … plus nice slatey ruins. The bonus surprise, however, was that the rock wall behind the ruins had two bronze age labyrinth carvings hewn into it. One of them is shown in the photo below left. My recollection is that it is about 25cm in diameter, but at 7000 years old it is but a baby compared to Aboriginal rock art!

The other cache was where the valley meets the sea and this was a very dramatic location. To view some photos of this area click here (there are also more Tintagel photos).

My second last stop for the day was a brief one in the harbour village of Boscastle, which has a very dramatic narrow entrance. The tiny cove has a breakwater that is almost as wide as the harbour itself. There were lots of tourists here, presumably come to see the cute village and harbour and spend money in the craft and clothing shops (I surprised myself because I actually bought something: another polar fleece hiking top).

The last stop of the day was Bude, because the afternoon was disappearing and I didn’t want to leave it too late to find a B&B, since I’d thrown caution to the wind and not booked in advance. Fortunately I arrived just in time to get a nice room at a reasonable price, and to still have time to go for a walk along the coast to grab a couple of nearby caches. One of these highlighted a fault line from some seismic activity, which appears as a rip across the hillside. Sometimes it is only 30cm wide and deep, but there’s one spot where I could stand in it and the rocky side walls were above my head and nearly an arm-span apart.

Finally, to get back to that pasty. I ate it at the end of the Rocky Valley, where the creek tumbles over a couple of waterfalls on its way to hitting the sea. I decided to take a photograph to celebrate the consumption of the pasty. Please note the large number of things involved in the taking of this photo:

• Consumer eats pasty left handed so that face is not obscured by arm or pasty – check
• Dramatic scenic background is visible – hmmm
• Photographer’s dexterity is evident by managing to also hold lens cap in left hand and not get it confused with the pasty whilst eating – check
• Photographer’s dexterity is further evident by holding the camera in the right hand in such a way as to access the shutter release – check
• Photographer flukes it so that the paper bag with the map of Cornwall is oriented towards the camera – check
• Photographer’s sense of the horizontal is maintained under these extremely difficult circumstances – hmmm
• Camera has exactly the right idea about where it is supposed to focus and get its exposure readings – hmmm

Oh, well, I can’t have everything I suppose. The pasty was quite nice, in a solid, filling sort of way, although “a bit much” on top of the full English breakfast I’d had. That’s why I needed the extra walk when I got to Bude.

By the way, pasty is pronounced “pahstee” not “paystee”. I asked. The lady seemed to think I was nuts, but those of you who have been hasty with “paystee” should note that I’m entitled to get nasty if it’s not “pahstee”. You know who you are.

And in case you didn’t click earlier, there are additional photos here.

* Corruption from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Slartibartfast wants to create more fjords because he thinks they give continents such a baroque feel.