As we get ready to depart Budock Vean I sense that this could be the last meaningful day of travel by car for some time to come as we prepare to head home. It feels like relief given the insane amount of travelling we've done this year. Yet despite the misgivings of having to endure Cornwall's roads during high season, here we go again with more attractions added before we leave the county. We try to get an earlier start as today could be quite messy as we head for a location I tried to reach yesterday.
As seems mormal here, a journey of 30 miles takes a good hour and we reach the attractive fishing port of Mevagissey and park up just outside the village where the rate is quite reasonable for two hours. Mevagissy is a picture postcard totally enclosed by surrounding hills. The inner and outer harbours are busy with a mixture of pleasure vessels and working fishing boats. It has a thriving fishing industry and is the second-biggest fishing port in Cornwall. The harbor area is crammed with pubs, cafes, galleries and shops clustered around the harbour walls and lining the pretty streets, but there's no beach. This limits the number of people coming here and being compact, Mevagisesy is easy to walk around. With two hours available we use a lot of that time just wandering into shops and around the habour. With cooler but bright and sunny weather today, it's just ideal as we wind down the tour. It still early afternoon and we're not ready for home just yet as we stop to buy Cornish pasties of course. There's one more attraction we would like to visit and that means another hour along Cornwall's notorious roads and it's soon clear that we were wise to leave when we did after we received an invitation to pay a family visit on the way back.
In mid-afternoon as we reach Looe. Looe, 20 miles west of Plymouth is divided in two by the River Looe, East Looe and West Looe being connected by a bridge. Looe developed as two separate towns each with MPs and its own mayor. The town centres around a small harbour and along the steep-sided valley of the River Looe which flows between East and West Looe to the sea beside a sandy beach. Offshore to the west, opposite the stonier Hannafore Beach, lies Looe Island.
We park beside the Looe river which seems to be adequate but I soon discover that the town is too big to explore in the one hour I've allowed for parking. In the end it's a whistle-stop tour with little time for 'muching'. We make it to the beach here, but our arrival during the first week of the school holidays hits home. The place is just heaving with sunseekers. I'm glad we took a more leisurely stroll around Mevagissey; I just wouldn't want to stay in Looe for long anyway.
The route back should be simple enough, heading back through Plymouth but I forgot one thing: The GPS is set to avoid tolls and the Saltash bridge has tolls. Instead, I am directed north to Launceston and around the north of Dartmore. I'm sure the extra fuel used this way is quite a bit more than the toll. Eventually we reach the A30 and better roads from now on as we connect with the M5 at Exeter. Nearly three hours have been spend along Cornwall's roads and talking of tolls, it's certainly taking a toll on me.
Heading for Portishead, there is more confusion and road closure as we finally meet up with relatives. Nearly 12 hours since we started this morning, we arrive home and another tour completed but one which seemed like an assault course at times.

Source: Visit, Wikipedia