Woke up on Friday morning and it was still raining, but undaunted we headed off for Tintagel which was just warming up for the Tintagel Festival.

As we approched the town the weather improved and at least it had stopped bloody raining by the time we had parked up.

Now the highlight of the festival is a recreation of King Arthur's final battle where a lot of people in costume batter the hell out of each other while drunk. Unfortunately the battle was on the Saturday when we would be heading home, but it didn't stop the town from being full of drunken enthusiasts!

We headed off to take a look at the castle, but unfortunately took the wrong road and ended up on the cliff tops by the St Materiana Church, not too much of a problem as the church was quite interesting with some nice stained glass windows and we soon found our way to the path down the cliff to the ruins. The castle is connected to the land only by a narrow pathway and then there is a steep climb to the gatehouse.

While legend has it listed as a home to Uther Pendragon and King Arthur the castle was actually built during the reign of Henry III for the Earl of Cornwall. Although rarely used it must at one time have been quite splendid with a number of buildings set within the walls.

While we up there the Sun decided to come out and I was delighted to catch a glimpse of a peregrine diving from the cliffs as well as seeing lots of other birds including a close up encounter with a jackdaw pulling moss from one of the castle walls, never realised what pretty eyes they had.

After a stroll around the island to see the remains of the chapel, cold store and well we took the path down to the beach where we visited Merlin's cave and the Powder Monkey had a scamper on the beach. On to lunch and we all had pasties except for Mab who enjoyed a very nice fisherman's platter at the English Heritage cafe by the beach (with beer and soft drinks about £30) before the Powder Monkey and I took the Land Rover back up to Tintagel town, a special treat for the Monkey as we got to sit in the front.

Back in the town we enjoyed a mooch in the bookshop and a drink in the Cornishman before heading back to the Lodge.