Roseland Cruise 15/03/09 a terrific success?

The day arrived and would you believe it the sun was shining brightly.

It had been decided that the muster point would be the East Car Park at the Cornish Market World at St Austell with arrival being between 10.00am and the planned departure at 13.00 hrs.

I arrived at about 11.40 and there were already a number of our group there and they had headed into the children’s entertainment areas of the site. Best of luck I say!

Had a good look around the market and the other stores on the edge of the main car park and then returned and found several more of our party had arrived. Wow it looked like it was going to be a very well attended cruise, excellent.

As time went by more arrivals and we had at least 5 Beetles, a couple of T4’s, a few T25,s Bays and the regular Splitty invasion, two a penny those things. Oh yes and me in my Corrado and one Mk2 Golf to lend support to the water cooled side of the Hobby.

John arrived and debuted his Split Screen bus. Unlike John he had thrown together an interior, right, his thrown together and mine or your version are two different things of course! You can even hear the air escaping as you shut the drawers in the rear cupboards for example, thrown together indeed! John it looks fantastic and must be one of if not the best SplitScreen 1960’s van we have in the club in an original and unmolested form that is of course.

Well at 13.15 we all got underway after having a chat to Garry Brandon who had come there to shop.

By the time we were  outside of the St Austell town limits we had become well and truly fragmented. The lead group with Wayne at the head numbered around 20 vehicles and we were all too aware that there were many more behind us. To let them catch up we waited in a lay by for some minutes and then discovered they had turned off and taken a different route towards St Mawes, so, off we went again.

Guess what Wayne and the lead half a dozen got away from the  40mpg Split cruisers and we were also then not sure where he had gone, radio and telephone contact was tenuous to say the least due to the terrain so we cruised through St Mawes and then, as we went back towards the turn off to the Roseland we passed another group coming towards us and decided to wait again until more had re grouped.

Whilst waiting Paul & Danny appeared from the other direction and let us know that the rest were parked in the NT car park at St Anthony. they then went off in search of the others and we waited until the group was complete again and then set off.

On arrival we managed to fill the car park quite nicely and other visitors wondered what was going on when they arrived to find no parking space available. The weather was excellent and the views from St Anthony were exceptional after making allowances for the heavy haze. It was remarkable to see just how prominent the two windmills at Longdowns were from there, just shows how tall they really are!

Lots of tea was made and quaffed and we all had a walk. Would you believe I have never actually beet there before in my 55 years of life. My school days all happened in Falmouth and St Anthony Lighthouse was well known to me but from a distance looking at it from Pendennis Point. Now I have the picture to prove I have actually been alongside it. I understand it was used in the children’s TV programme Fraggle Rock [whatever that is] but had no prior knowledge of this.

The time passed really quickly and all of a sudden we started to thin out. Wyne and Debs decided to take the King Harry Ferry back and, as I had not been on the ferry for many years I decided to tag along. Bit shaken by the fare though, £4.50 seems a little stiff as I doubt I would have used that much petrol but it was nice to take the trip on what was to me, a new ferry. The KH historically seem to have the cast offs from the Torpoint Ferry incidentally.

Quite a few ships laid up there and this echoes the economic situation the World is in at present and the numbers seen will probably increase rather than decrease in the short term I guess.

An excellent event, thanks Wayne for the idea of going there.

I have heard subsequently that we were lucky to get away with using the market world a s a starting point as they do not allow groups to do so apparently. O h well we all went to the market after all so in a group we were but as customers in my opinion.

Looking forward to the next and the Swapmeet of course on Easter Sunday.

Norman

Here is what my Buggy looked like a few weeks back, quite incongruous really

Roseland Cruise Pictures

Johns ‘just thrown together’ bus

Paul alias Jakey’s new look for 09

A Mixed Line Up

Some rough thrown together engine bay !

Tia & Kevin’s Split

George hiding in the shade

Sorry forgot your name! our friends from Hayle

Clean T25, looking good

St Mawes in the hazy distance

Summers coming at last

St Anthony Lighthouse or is it Fraggle Rock?

Stay tuned for more news soon

Norman

This entry was posted on 22/03/2009 at 04:04 pm and is filed under Cornwall Volkswagen Owners Club. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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