Land’s End, Cornwall

 

Land’s End, Cornwall

There is a lot of chatter in the press today about Land’s End and the arrival imminently of the Olympic Torch in Cornwall.  This is where the real countdown to London 2012 begins for Britain.

Until our recent trip to Trevella, near Newquay none of us had ever been to Land’s End before.   I certainly hadn’t as I just thought it was the end of the country and a gimmicky signpost pointing to lots of places far far away.

Oh how wrong I was.

J asked on the Saturday morning “er, how far is Lands End?”.     We worked out it was about an hour and a half away but what a fantastic drive it would be, really giving us a taste for the county we were in.

We realised just how wrong as we pulled up to the car park and saw this:

Wow.

It was certainly busy for a wet and windy Saturday in May, no doubt later on today it will be mobbed.   And had I known that David Beckham was going to be there, I might have stuck around.

There is a whole “experience” built around this landmark now and I have to say it was fantastic.

You can either wander, as we did, down to the cliff edge and look out across the sea, or you can pay an entrance fee and go and have a go on a whole number of attractions.

There is either “Arthur’s Quest”, an interactive experience about Arthur featuring Brian Blessed or a film showing you a journey depicting just that, speeded up so you cover the whole journey from Land’s End to John O Groats in about eight minutes.    Made me a bit seasick if I am honest!

Or you can do a Air Rescue Simulator

Or go and see the animals in the petting zoo.

Certainly enough to keep a family busy for a whole day which makes the £25 family ticket a bargain.   There were also plenty of food choices and obligatory “Shopping Village”.

I didn’t realise until we arrived that the “gimmicky signpost” is actually a family business that has been run since 1957 and is fabulous!    You can pay a very small fee and the family that now runs it will insert any town name, or a message, and the mileage to that town.    They have literally thousands of places on the list (Fleet 185 miles).

The scenery though was breathtaking.   Even on a murky overcast day such as ours.   It was hard not to imagine what the sea could tell you if it could.    And I couldn’t help but think of the hero and heroine of a recent book I read called “Light Between Oceans” of a lighthouse keeper and his family.     Really getting a sense of “this is it”  the edge of the country, out there is nothing but sea.

All in all Land’s End was brilliant.  So much more than I expected.   And even without David Beckham it is well worth making the effort to go down there for a day.

Image of Lands End courtesy of Shutterstock