A Titanic Drive (?)

We woke up to rain, which was a new experience for us since arriving.
All of the U.K. were also waking up to a day that would bring a new reign.

We left Portsmouth at 8.30am and drove to Southampton with the intention of doing the ‘Titanic Trail’ walk.
We braved the solid rain for a few memorials etc. but it was pretty unpleasant and I could see by glancing across at the lady in the bright jacket beside me that I was creating a titanic problem for myself if we continued with the rest of the sites on my list.

The clincher was when we we were trying to get to the exact spot where the Titanic launched (Dock 4) and got caught in the middle of a traffic jam of thousands of people disgorging from a massive cruise boat that had recently berthed at this exact spot.

It was said that Helen of Troy’s face could launch 1000 ships, but the look I was getting from the passenger seat was about to sink mine - so we bailed for the warmth and cover of the Titanic museum in downtown Southampton. This was interesting and sobering as we toured the exhibits which particularly focussed on how devastating the tragedy was for the families of Southampton - almost all of whom lost relatives who were crew members onboard the fateful ship.

After we had warmed up and reenergised with coffee in the the cafe at the museum I sensed that things were generally returning to a more even keel. It was still bucketing down outside and we were loitering near the entrance hoping for the rain to abate a little. We got chatting to the staff there who asked about where we were from and where we were headed - the usual stuff.
‘So where are you heading to now?’
‘We’re driving to St Austell in Cornwall’
‘But that’s 3.5 hours away - you’re not driving that far in ONE day are you?
The gentleman was a little familiar with Australia and then added ‘Ah, but you Australians are crazy - you’d probably drive from Sydney to Adelaide in one day’
The poor Southampton man was already concerned and disbelieving, so we didn’t enlighten him that we have done exactly that, and now that the rain has eased slightly we bid them farewell and started driving west into the foggy deluge.

The little Fiat handled the conditions surprisingly well, although I kept reaching for the wiper control hoping I would find an extra switch position beyond ‘high’ for the wiper speed. The intermittent airconditioning also meant that sometimes it was hard to distinguish the fog inside the car from the fog outside.

After an hour or two of this, just about when we were north of Torquay (yes, THAT Torquay) conditions started to improve. The road in front reappeared, as did lush rolling hills and farmland interspersed with gorgeous little towns with houses clinging closely to the edges of the road.

Buoyed with the improvement in the weather, we stopped at Bodmin to get our first proper taste of Cornwall. We visited the Bodmin prison - which was an infamously notorious place but also was of interest because it had featured in the BBC series ‘Poldark’ which we both had enjoyed a few years ago. The jail was interesting and authentic, but perhaps even more interesting was the Bodmin Jail hotel right next door which is where most of the Poldark jail scenes had been shot. This magnificent hotel was part of the derelict jail before it was converted into luxury accommodation 2 years ago.
Now you can pay good money (and lots of it) to stay in magnificently converted prison cells. The kind young lady on Reception who allowed us to inspect one of the rooms told us that so far the refurbishment has cost 70million GBP.

We then continued on for the last part of our drive to our B & B for tonight at St Austell. By now the weather was beautiful so after checking in we headed straight off to Charlestown harbour area to have some dinner. The harbour is incredibly picturesque (it also featured in the harbour scenes in the Poldark series) and we enjoyed some authentic fish and chips while sitting comfortably soaking up the last of the day’s sunshine.Read more