Journey of the Hosteller

Hear ye! Hear ye! Due to work-related responsibilities there may not be any posts on here for a few weeks. Stay rambling, Matt

  The view over Treyarnon Bay, 30 paces from the door of the hostel. It’s a Cornwall double feature! With a week in between! Wow! Just when you thought the season of spooks was over, art - by which I mean this blog - imitates life as I talk about a second Cornwall jaunt but a simple year after my stay in YHA Coverack. What a chilling parallel! OK, enough frippery. The summer of 2023 was less overwhelmingly hot than that of 2022, and my trip to YHA Treyarnon Bay in September 2023 was met with weather more familiar to the Cornwall-bound holiday-maker. YHA Treyarnon Bay was likewise more familiar ground to me, having spent very happy holidays both in Padstow to the east and in Mawgan Porth to the south. The hostel itself is right on the coast, overlooking the beach and the breakers. I had begun my hateful gentrification transformation at this point and was staying in a landpod, a decision for which, again, I remain unremittingly unrepentant. It was perfect. Wine Cove, as viewed from t...

The magnificent view between Coverack and Kennack Sands along the South West Coast Path. The nights are drawing in, the frosts are clawing ever closer, the leaves are vacating the trees. Old Man Winter walks among us, and by God he’s feeling ornery. Time, I think, for some sun and sand. Join me in my fantastical imaginarium! Leave behind the chill of encroaching winter for the heady summer of 2022. In the UK, this was a scorcher, with a record temperature of 40.3°C reached in July*. In August 2022, I had the yen, as I often do, to go down to the sea again. John Masefield and I are of one mind on this one. In heeding that wild, clear call, there is one destination that for me rises above all others: Cornwall. I have spent many of the happiest moments of my life on the Cornish coast. From babe, to boy, to man, it has been a source of constant joy. Although my childhood stomping ground was the north coast of Cornwall, around Padstow, I felt sure that the south coast was its equal. So it ...

Bruno Catalano's 'Khadine', with the Thames and SIS building in the background. “Two hostels?” I hear you say. “‘Tis not enough to fill a hotpot, nor to feed a growing lad! Shame  and fie on thee! But two hostels indeed.” To which I say yes, my friend of archaic vernacular, but there is a theme here. The hostels I have chosen for this hotpot are of the urban variety and, like all city eating, your portions are less, though your prices be matched. I am not, by nature, an urban animal, but I enjoy a trip into town as much as the next country mouse (precisely the opposite of the moral of that story, but I digress). The city, or the town, has many charms that the countryside can’t match, not least in terms of cultural enrichment. The Houses of Parliament. London, the richest plum of all for this, is replete with museums and galleries, exhibitions and landmarks. A cursory google will reveal more information and advice on tourist attractions than I could ever hope to impart. I wi...