Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Coast & Cornwall Day 6 - Goonhilly, Lizard & St. Ives

My first stop of the day was at Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station, where visitors can see lots of the dishes and even get a guided tour round one. I guess the old engineer in me never dies! Here's a shot of Arthur, built in 1962 to track the fast-moving Telstar satellite - apparently it can do one full azimuth revolution in 3 minutes!

[Arthur, the oldest dish at Goonhilly, and you can tour round inside]

My next stop was Lizard Point, the most southernmost point in mainland Britain. There are rugged rocks and coastal flowers, one of the most prevalent is a native of South Africa and has taken a strong foothold on the rocks about the Lizard, it's a succulent called the Hottentot Fig:

[Yellow Hottentot Fig, but they also come in orange and delicate shades of pink]

I also stopped at Mullion Cove and St. Michael's Mount on the way to St. Ives, where I'll be spending two nights. Here's a view of part of the harbour as I walked out to find dinner - the tide was splashing the walkways with foam, so you had to time your walk carefully!

[St. Ives and a few crashing waves]

See a few more photos from today in my Flickrstream.