Tintagel: Merlin’s Cave

The third post in my holiday series is about Merlin’s Cave. As I explained in my post on Tintagel Castle, the castle links the mainland to a peninsula. Below the narrow spit that joins the two is a wide bay, and there are various caves in the cliffs. One of these caves in particular has been dubbed Merlin’s Cave. It’s actually a tunnel that goes all the way through the cliffs and out on the other side.

Legend has it that Merlin hid the newborn Arthur in this cave, to save him from the enemies of his father, Uther Pendragon.

The bay is, of course, tidal, and can only be accessed at certain times of day. So once the tide had gone out some way, we climbed down yet another set of steps to reach the stony beach.

This is a view looking down over the bay. I’m not sure how far the tide goes out, but I think it comes all the way up as the sand was wet right up to the rock face. The cave is over to the lefthand side.

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So we had a peer in the cave, but there was an evil wind blowing straight through it so I didn’t stay in there too long. The tiny person here is actually my husband!

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This one is inside the cave looking through to the tunnel that leads out the other side.

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And then this one is looking back out of the cave onto the beach:

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After this, I wandered around the beach taking pictures of nice stuff. There was a little waterfall trickling down the cliff face. And there were rocks covered in limpets and closed up sea anemones, which I imagine were waiting for the sea to return:

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The reason I took so many random photos is that I was waiting for my husband who wanted to try long exposure photography on the sea. And here’s a few of his photographs. He does things properly with a fancy camera, whereas all mine have been taken on my mobile phone, but yes, I swear it was the same beach on the same day!

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Hope you enjoyed those pics. There’s one more post to come in the series, so stay tuned.

4 Comments

  1. Very cool! Cheyenne loved the pictures of the “mushrooms” on the rocks. We just got back from lots of hiking and waterfalls where there were mushrooms everywhere on everything.

    Your husband got some greats photos at the end there! I would love to be able to take photos like that someday, but darn the prices on lenses!

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