Mevagissy and a return to Heligan

Thursday 28th September
This morning there were three owls shouting at each other when we woke up. The rain had passed over, leaving us with a sunny day all day. 
We made our way across country to St Austell and then down to Mevagissy. It’s a bigger village than Polperro, not quite as picturesque but more obviously a working place – many of the boats in the harbour were fishing boats. We found excellent coffee and some polenta cake at a large café overlooking the harbour, prowled about a bit, found a sandwich for lunch, from a shop that was due to close this afternoon and where the woman behind the counter was a bit excited at the imminent freedom.
On to Heligan, choosing to walk down and round the outside, and finding a bench to sit on while we ate lunch, at the bottom of the hill. Round to the bottom of the jungle, up the side, across the new (to us) rope bridge, which was an interesting experience, up to the top and down again. Further on round the outside of the estate, then steeply up through woods to the area where the farm animals are kept. White Park Cattle, Devon Ruby cows, highland cattle, Tamworth, Berkshire and Cornish lop pigs, Jacob sheep and others.
We didn’t spend very long in the gardens proper – the colour of summer is over although the staff had made some striking displays with pumpkins. Mooched into the shop to buy a couple of birthday cards and had a quick visit to the autumn produce display.
The wretched satnav got confused by the lanes around that garden and sent us down a tortuous route towards St Austell. Called at Tesco for a soulless ready meal for tea.   

10,797 steps

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