.Friday 13th September 🤞🤞🤞
Today we are doing something touristy, we are heading to Par, and particularly Par Beach, near St Austell, by train!! But first and to set us up for the day Christine excelled herself and we had a full-on English Breakfast, black pudding naturally🥰🥰.
We arrived at Newquay station with plenty of time to catch the train and even get a coffee before boarding but then we ran into a “wobble”. Half the car park had been cordoned off as there were building works going on, so no space. We turned around to head out and “lady-Luck” struck, someone was just leaving as we were about head out at the exit, result. Then we had to pay, well naturally it was on the ‘phone but neither of us had this app so we had to go through the process of registering; the bottom line was we had to run to catch the train and missed out on our coffee!!!
It was a very pleasant 50-minute run from Newquay to Par, not a heritage line but a normal GWR service, so we could use one OAP travel cards. The interesting thing is our return journey for two, was £8.50, no charge for the dogs: Our car park charge for 8-hrs was £10.70, how does that work!!!!
We arrived at Par Station (actually on time!!) and headed to Par Beach, just over half a mile away but en-route found a Football pitch to let Tom-Tom & Rosie stretch their legs, well charge about that is!!!, It turned out this football pitch was part of a much wider sports complex that supported a rather nice cafe, so later than planned we enjoyed hot drinks and again succumbed to more cake😡😡.
It is rather strange, everybody has heard of St. Austell, (Par’s PO address), but it turned out this “nondescript” small harbour “village” has a fully functioning GWR station that is one of the stops on the mainlines: “Paddington to Penzance” and “Cardiff to Penzance” rail routes and perhaps many more, not to mention the direct link to Newquay, so why I ask myself is this so; I did some research.
Surprisingly Par has quite a history. This quiet fishing village came into prominence in the early 1800’s when a Fowey Businessman, Joseph Treffry, acquired a local copper mine in Par and to be able to export his copper he had to build the harbour. The copper expanded but when it petered out, tin was also being mined, followed by china-clay, all being shipped out of Par harbour. This same Joseph Treffry started to build a tramway to Newquay as at that time his copper was being sent to Swansea for processing, having to sail around the dangerous waters off Lands End. Though he died before his tramway was completed, this was the start of the Newquay – Par railway line we used today, and due to the importance of Par, when the great western railway from London was built, it came via Par and still stops here. Par harbour is now owned by English China Clay and is still in use.
After our coffee break we headed to Par beach; a pretty walk, firstly through some woods then over the sand dunes and into this large bay and as the tide was out, an enormous expanse of sand, the dogs were in heaven.
After a couple of hours enjoying a very pleasant walk along the beach in the sunshine with no wind we headed back towards the village. TT & R continuously ran in and out of the sea, along the beach, chasing other dogs balls etc. they never stopped; how do they do it??? There are three pubs to choose from in Par: the first one didn’t appeal as it was in amongst a row of houses but the second looked more interesting so in we went for a pint but being virtually empty, no atmosphere so didn’t stop for a second.
Heading back to the station we passed the same football pitch, but this time on the opposite side and unknown to us there was a stream there, in they went, one would have thought by now they would have been shattered but no, it was if this was their first run of the day. The good news, being fresh water, it washed the sand/salt out of their coats. Arrived back at the station but this time no running!!!
Another pleasant train ride through the Cornish countryside arriving back in Newquay around 1700hrs then back to Rosie.
Today we had both done in excess of 10,000 steps, around 4,5-miles, quite the norm for Christine but a record for me for quite a considerable time thanks to my new knee, but we were knackered@!!!!
A very touristy but really enjoyable came to an end with another early night