After a very restful night’s sleep, we had a leisurely start to the day and waited for Judith and Ivan to arrive as it was Juduth’s birthday and we were treating them to a trip around Helligan’s Lost Gardens and lunch! After they arrived we had a cup of tea in the van along with a call from Sam from Thailand and then crossed to the park to begin the visit.
There is a lot to see here, but there are also some very steep slopes so we stayed as much on the level as we could.
The weather was a bit grey so I think the plant photos work best in highly textured black and white. 
We wandered through the covered woods and then out into the market garden and then sat for a while , where Ivan and Judith made a new friend.
Then we went for a very luscious lunch which I think we can all recommend. Ivan had the Massaman Lamb Curry , which was so nice he took some home in a doggy bag. Judy had a ploghman’s with nice local cornish cheese. Sue and I were a bit greedy and shared a Caesar salad and Bao buns with mushrooms in a teriyaki sauce.
After a look around the shop, I legged it back to the van, while everyone else went to the farm shop next to the park.
Judith and Ivan then left and we then had a relaxing evening eating chips from the Chip van that was visiting the site, and an “Aktar at home” dahl to dunk them in… outrageous. 
As we were staying at the Helligan Campsite, we got 10% off the tickets and we could turn them into a week long ticket. This then also gave us the ability to go into the Gardens at 6:30am the next day… whats not to like! You also get a free cup of tea on entering!
Thre were quite a few people there, but we soon lost most of them and disappeared into the Jungle which had fabulous plants and a rope bridge! It had been raining in the early morning, but the weather just turmed so we had some nice clouds and sunshine as a lovely backdrop to the copious ferns, palms and other plants, not to mention a couple of great shots of a robin from Sue.
We walked back up towards the entrance and spotted where the beavers are now running wild, not that we saw one, and then went back to the van. A great way to start the day. Luckily the cafe was not open, otherwise I would probably have gone in for a Full Cornish, hogs pudding the lot!
After that Sue went to test out the fantastic shower block here and then we packed up as we had a lunch date with Andy and Sarah at our next stop, the Eco park at Porthtowan 
The journey there was about an hour and I was testing out a new navigation app, called co-pilot as I am fed up of Waze/apple maps sending me down the smallest narrowest roads imaginable. It went great until we got near and just seemed to be sending me around a loop on the A30.
We got to the Eco Park, and it was pretty windy. We parked up and went for a look around and sadly the Canteen, where we were going to meet Andy and Sarah, was closed , as the staff were poorly, hope it wasnt the food. So we had to go for plan B… The Blue Bar by the beach.
We had a great lunch and a good catch-up with them and then headed back to the Park to set up camp for the night. We manoeuvred the van into the least windy spot, using the van to shelter the awning from the strong wind. There is a new sauna area so, after our last fantastic sauna experience (at Ben’s), I wandered over to have a look and had a nice chat to a guy who was minding it. It opens tomorrow and we may well be tempted!
We chilled out for a bit then wandered over to the open-air bar for an early evening drink. They were setting up for a jam/open mike night. We sauntered back to the van for yet another Aktar at home curry, the last one . We returned to the bar for a final drink and listened to the jamming session and some poetry. Quite a different demographic to the last campsite, where we were the youngest and here, we are probably the oldest.
