The Eden Project

We didn't have very long to stop here and it's really a multiple visit place. I'd heard of it, but never seen it. We decided we had time to stop for an hour just to check it out. M&K had been before but of course, I hadn't. It was totally awesome (the only word I can use to describe it).

Cornwall is full of clay pits. Clay and tin mining and smuggling. Daphne Du Maurier's book Jamaica Inn was set in Cornwall and on my last trip into this part of the world, we stopped at Jamaica Inn. I thought I had written about it, but can't find anything. So maybe not.

This place was an old clay pit. And some very clever people, got together and decided to start this project.

Their book says: “The Eden Project, an educational charity and social enterprise, creates gardens, exhibitions, events, experiences and projects that explore how people can work together and with nature to change things for the better. Project one: creating a global garden in a 50m-deep crater that was once a china clay pit as a symbol of regeneration.”

It opened in 2000 and has grown from 5 staff to over 500 plus volunteers.

There are 3 domes which encapsulate different environments.

And those domes contain some of the most wonderful things I have seen in one place. It just shows what can happen when people put their mind to something. In the middle of Cornwall, in the Uk where it's cold and wet outside you can see plants and animals from Africa, and other rainforest countries, and from Mediterranean countries. We only went into the rainforest area. So there is much more we didn't see.

It's a place for children and adults. Every penny they make goes back into the project to improve and add.

The giant bee reminding people of the place insects play in the ecology of the world.

One of the signs that I found most attractive!!

So every time I eat chocolate, I'm saving rain forests?

We wandered the rainforest. Plants galore. Many I'd seen before, many I hadn't.

I remember these ones from somewhere in my past. It's an anthurium andraeanum or the Flamingo Flower. I seem to remember having one when we lived in Brisbane.

I had to keep wiping down my camera lens. It was so hot and muggy that it kept fogging up. Makes for some great photos sometimes. Here's one.

Right at the top of the dome was a viewing platform. As you can see there are at least a million stairs to get up there. Would give a great view, but not on our agenda for this day. Or probably any day if truth be told!!!

The whole project is about sustainability. There is a place to eat and they make all their own food, from the project, they recycle all their water. I went to the toilet while we were there. The toilet bowls are stained and there is a sign above the toilet to say that they were clean, but that the recycled water can leave stains. I commented to M&K that with our obsession with white being clean, many people would have problems using recycled water for flushing loos, simply because of the staining.

Long benches for eating at. Lots of good food. And a great feeling about the whole place.

And this was the kitchen area. You could look down and watch what they were doing. Not a great photo..........

One problem with the place is the hill it's on. It's a long way down. Stairs or ramps. But I wouldn't want to push a wheelchair up the ramp. We went down by the stairs and I came back up by the ramp. It was a loooooooooooong walk.

Periodically on the way down, I spotted these cutting off corners.

These were stairs for children to run up and beat their parents up the hill. I can just imagine M as a little person, going up these and thinking they were wonderful!!

It was definitely a place to return to at some stage, next time with more time to explore.

That's all for today folks.

Madeleine

Sunday, 30 December 2012