Here we are on the last field trip of the year. All week they have been predicting rain but it has turned out to be a lovely weekend.We started the day with a very long coach drive - Cornwall is the very farthest south west part of the island and takes a long time to reach.
First stop was at the Eden Project a place that has created a series of biomes or biospheres in a former china clay pit and works to teach us about sustainability and green futures.The rainforest biome was a bit too much for us Northern Minnesotans so we chose to hang out more in the Mediterranean Climate biome.
After another bus ride, which took us through some harrowing narrow lanes, we got to our youth hostel. But before I talk about that I must say a bit about the driving on these field trips. We all hop on a 40 passenger coach driven by our brilliant driver, Mark. Throughout the semester we have been amazed by his ability to make tight turns, back into narrow parking places in a single try and avoid all manner of road hazards and traffic jams. But we had yet to see his true skill level until the drive through the lanes of Cornwall. Linda has noted that a lane here is actually one lane wide - not something you see often in the U.S. but here it is something quite usual. When you take a very large coach ( bus) through a one lane winding road it can get pretty tight. We found ourselves going down a lane which kept getting narrower and narrower, after squeaking through a section with posts and hedges on both sides and then a tight corner against a brick wall, Mark finally decided he would have to reverse.This meant scrapping back through the hedges and trying to find a way to turn the coach around. Needless to say, he did it and it was Brilliant! He even received applause from car loads of people who had to wait for us.
The hostel was beautiful - perched on the coast looking out at the ocean. We all wished we could have just stayed there the whole time, walking along the cliffs, going down to the beach, absolutely lovely. However the next day we were off to St Ives and then on to Lands End.
In St. Ives, we went to the Tate museum and the Barbara Hempworth Sculpture Garden. The garden was lovely, as was the sea but the town itself was a bit touristy and was full of shops. An interesting note about St. Ives is that a great deal of Pirates of the Caribbean was shot at this location. After a couple of hours, we were back on the coach and heading for Lands End, some 4,000 miles from Duluth.
On our final day on the coast, some of the students went surfing at Newquay in Cornwall at the Bluewings Surf School for a few hours and then we headed home by way of Dartmoor National Park.
It was lovely being on the ocean again and a little sad as it was the last field trip with the students. We'll all be home by the end of the month.
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