Exploring Cornwall's rich mining heritage with the Ralstons

It's always a great pleasure to show people around our wonderful county of Cornwall. Particularly if guests have a keen interest in the history and beauty of the area, as did Prof. John Ralston and his wife Ann, who spent three nights with us this week.  South Australian of the Year, Officer of the Order of Australia, these are just two of the many accolades and awards showered on John, the founding Director of the University of South Australia's Ian Wark Research Institute (see also posting of 27 May 2014).

John and Ann are great fans of the BBC series Poldark, so in their limited time in Cornwall Barbara and I took them to some of the filming locations, beginning with the beautiful Kynance Cove on the Lizard peninsula, one of the settings for the fictitious Nampara Cove.

Overlooking Kynance Cove and "Nampara Cove" beach

Yesterday was a long day spent exploring some of Cornwall's copper and tin mining areas, beginning with the three magnificent 19th century engine houses at Wheal Peevor, near Redruth (posting of 1st July), which we will be visiting next June with Physical Separation '19 delegates.

The large pumping engine house of Wheal Peevor

Wheal Peevor

Then on to the rugged north coast, with a quick stop to admire the stunning North Cliffs scenery before travelling to the far west for lunch in the old mining town of St. Just, and then to Botallack, the submarine mines area, and the main location for the Poldark mining scenes.

The beautiful North Cliffs

Botallack

The iconic Crowns engine houses

Outside the West Wheal Owles pumping engine house, which, suitably 'dressed',
was Ross Poldark's 18th century Wheal Leisure

It was great to see John and Ann, who are on a 7-week 'Grand Tour' of Europe. We will see them again in 15 months time, when John will be presenting a keynote lecture at Flotation '19. In the meantime he will be a busy man, with two 4 week trips to Namibia to make company contacts on behalf of the Namibia University of Science and Technology. He will also be travelling to China twice, to present seminars at Central South University in Changsha, and to work with Prof. Zhenghe Xu, now Dean of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, who was previously at the University of Alberta, Canada. John will be at the University of Alberta prior to Flotation '19 to present research seminars, and apart from all this will be delivering a keynote lecture at Metplant '19 in Perth and mentoring research teams at the University of South Australia!

But he does get the chance to relax occasionally, and what better place than for a couple of pints of real ale in Falmouth's famous Chain Locker pub.

Twitter @barrywills