For fathers day this year my family and I decided to finally visit Trebah Gardens. Offering a fathers day deal where all dads received free entry, this was the final push we needed to take ourselves 20 minutes down the road. An exotic wonderland of tropical plants and small private beach, Trebah sounded like paradise and a million miles away from anything associated with Cornwall.
As awful as it sounds, during the summer season and all realms of special days, I like to keep clear of anything tourists would want to attend. This is purely because now I am on the other side and no longer a tourist to the South West but a resident (although I am still dubbed an 'import') I completely get the frustration. After having these magical places through the long, cold winter season and loving them anyway, to then have hoards of people swarm in because the sun is shining it (selfishly) kind of ruins it a little bit. So, Trebah sounded like a perfect alternative as we assumed most people would flock to the beaches in the 20 degree weather instead of a tropical garden.
After haphazardly wandering through the garden to get down to the private beach for a coffee and to bask in the glorious sunshine, we all exclaimed how much we were enjoying the grounds and how silly we had been not visiting before. Pulling out the map, we made a very loose plan to try and see all of the grounds before heading back towards the entrance for lunch. This plan soon got scrapped when we spotted the kids trail with picture clues which we decided to follow instead-remember kids, growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional.
After getting lost and rectifying our mistake we went to the cafe for some well earned lunch. I opted for a vegan quinoa salad with pinenuts whilst my family enjoyed a potato skin bake special, a fish salad and a falafel burger. Deciding to walk off the lunch, we were drawn towards the amphitheatre by high pitched and slightly off key singing. We hadn't seen any sign posts for any events so curiosity lead us over to find an unofficial choir belting out 'hallelujah'. After we politely clapped and slipped away we were even more confused than before and decided to head home because the dogs were becoming restless and it was then we realised it was 4pm.
Somehow, the entire day had passed and we hadn't batted an eyelid, a sure sign of a place to revisit and a good day out.
Trebah Gardens is a real delight; from the twisty, imaginatively named paths to the stunningly secluded private beach, there were entire generations of families enjoying their day out. We left with a year membership and the yearning to return.
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