August 2007 - The Eden Project, Cornwall

With our new home in Spain finally sorted we can begin to plan for retirement. We feel the need to visit one or two places which we have always said we would go to but have never got around to.

One of these is the Eden Project in Cornwall.

Now I am firmly of the belief that (to misquote a famous person) Cornwall is a great place to visit, but not for the whole day. This not withstanding I suggested that we visit the Project as we kept seeing it on TV, agreeing that it would be a great place to go, but never getting around to it.

We knew that the whole place had been built within a clay-pit and we had seen the famous biomes often enough but knew little else. Kathie therefore did some research and picked us a lovely guest house just around the corner from the Project and we made plans.

The official website is here http://www.edenproject.com/index.php and this will tell most of the story. When we arrived at our guest house we were invited to their evening "bar" for drinks and we met some of the folk who had actually worked in the clay-pit before it became The Eden Project. They had allegedly been sacked when the land was sold off to make way for the Eden Project. The popular myth we were told is that the Project was built in a "reclaimed" quarry but that is not the case. Whether this is true or not I cannot verify but even so there are probably more people employed there now than were there before it began.

It is a fabulous place to visit but quite surprising in its size and layout. See the aerial picture below. On this you can see that the biomes form but a small part of the site whereas one draws the impression from TV etc. that they form the main part of the Project. Most of the site is garden with many varieties of plants including huge banks of Lavender. The whole theme is the environment and its protection and improvement. It is set in the lower levels of the old quarry and the entrance to the biomes is about 20 metres below the entry/exit buildings. There is transport via a mini train for those with dicky pins so all can visit.

By staying in a guest house so close to the Project we were able to walk there and so received an environmental discount. The day before we had driven 340 miles from home but it seems that if you walk the last half mile you get a discount for protecting the environment. Add to that my concessionary ticket and so we only paid about 60% of the normal entry fee. If you agree to class your entry fee as "gift aid" the Project gets the tax back from your fee and this entitles you to a whole year's entry free of charge. Very handy if you live within striking distance.

Inside the Tropical Biome

The main attraction for us was the Tropical biome. Once inside you feel the temperature and humidity rise as the atmosphere is that of a tropical rain forest.

If it is cold outside ones camera and spectacle lenses immediately steam up. From the entrance the paths rise quite steeply so pushchair and wheelchair users need be aware. I don't think you could wheel yourself about unless you were of wheelchair-athlete status. It is best to visit early morning as this biome becomes very popular. On our first day we arrived at about 10:00am and we virtually had the place to ourselves and it was very pleasant. We visited on our second day at about 4:00pm and it was like being inside an extremely hot and crowded lift. It was completely shoulder to shoulder so we had to leave.

The other main biome is called the Mediterranean Zone and whilst it has some lovely flowers and plants and is beautifully laid out, it is less impressive than the Tropical Zone.

The following pictures give a taste of the Project.

The above is the WEEE Man. The WEEE man, designed by Paul Bonomini, is a huge robotic figure made of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. It weighs 3.3 tonnes and stands seven meters tall – representing the average amount of e-products every single one of us throws away over a lifetime. Makes you think! If you look carefully you can see that it is constructed from everything from an old cell phone through to washing machines and lawn mowers.

The Guest House we stayed in provided us with what used to be a Granny Flat so we were almost self contained. Each evening the garden was visited by about five badgers so we sat and watched them for half an hour or so whilst they ate the food laid out by the owner. Photography was a problem due to the low light but here are a couple of pics which are not too out-of-focus.

The digital camera I was using employed an auto-focus system and as there was little light and so no contrast it could not resolve a sharp image.

We really enjoyed the visit to both the Project and the Guest House and would recommend them both to anybody who can get there.