CAN YOU REALLY GO GREEN WHEN YOU GO ON HOLIDAY?

11:00 - 17 March 2007

Taking three children down to Cornwall on public transport seems to present logistical problems from the outset.What to pack when you've got to carry it all yourself? How to get about when you're there? Will impatient teenagers object to hanging around for buses or waiting for trains? Will little nine-year-old legs buckle under the miles of biking?

Yet try it and it transpires that it's remarkably easy.

First Great Western has a straight-through train to St Austell from Bath, and the beautiful Bosinver holiday complex where we were setting up home for three nights was just a £4 cab ride away from the station. How much easier could it be?

As the train wound its way along the stunning south Devon coast, there was ample opportunity to smugly reflect on the benefits of the car-free holiday.

No whining from the back seat, no car sickness, no need to stop for the loo, for food or to pander to any other whim at over-priced motorway service stations. We played backgammon and cards and ate our lunch. What's more it's a beautiful train journey and we watched the salt spray mist up the windows as the tracks go what seems perilously close to the sea.

I arrived as fresh as my three young 'passengers' and ready to explore. Pat and David Smith have run Bosinver for ten years and when they bought the complex a decade ago, they knocked down the pine chalets and custom-built individually-designed high-class cottages.

This is an opportunity for yummy city mummies and their brood to get their Cath Kidston wellies well and truly muddy.

No luxury is missing: the homes are beautifully decorated, with every mod con, from dishwashers in the modern fitted kitchens to power showers in the en suite. What's more, you'll be hard-pressed to know that it is a complex. Although there are 19 cottages on the 35-acre site, none are overlooked and all are reached via rambling, hedgerowed paths. We loved our upside-down cottage - Higher Hill - three bedrooms, one ensuite and a gloriously luxurious bathroom on the ground floor and a huge living space upstairs with a floor-lit sun deck affording splendid views.

A muddy farm track leads to neighbouring village Polgooth, where we stocked up on supplies at the local shop - and if I'd been more organised I could have had these delivered in advance. But no need. Along with a vase of fresh flowers, Pat had left tea, coffee, milk and a freshly baked cake as a welcome. Back from Polgooth we tramped round Bosinver's fantastic woodland walk (with a quick pit stop at the highly entertaining zip wire).

We came back in time for a game of table tennis and pool in the complex's large games room. Very Famous Five.

While planning the trip, I'd been delighted to discover how close the cottages are to the newly opened Clay Trails, a cycle network that stretches across this part of Cornwall providing easy access in one direction to the Eden Project (£1 off the entrance fee for those who arrive on a bike - although more of this later) and Heligan Gardens in the other, as well as the picturesque fishing port of Mevagissey.

I thought we were all set to bike our way round Cornwall for two days of outdoor fun. Unfortunately, the weather god had other ideas. The day dawned bright and sunny, and I rushed with my youngest to the popular daily animal feeding session. After feeding hens, ducks, Chalky the goat and some very gentle sheep, we collected fresh eggs for breakfast and headed back to rouse the teenagers. By which time, of course, it was pouring with rain, making plans to bike to nearby Mevagissey somewhat redundant. A new plan was hatched to taxi it to the fishing port and then walk back along the coastal path and then the clay trails back to the cottage - between seven and eight miles in all. And it would, of course, have stopped raining by then.

Or not. It poured. The grimly, relentlessly refused to stop - except for ten hope-charged minutes when we first reached charming Mevagissey. But the coastal walk is hilly and challenging and affords some spectacular views - only improved by the wild weather. The trails were, courtesy of the weather, more mud than clay, but again took us through some beautiful Cornish countryside, and promises of fires and hot chocolate on our return spurred my wet wanderers on.

We arrived back wetter and muddier than any of us had been in a long time - but no matter. Yet again I silently thanked Pat's holiday cottage experience. A large slate entrance hall gave us plenty of room for us to kick off boots, clothes - the lot - before hot baths and showers all round and the aforementioned hot chocolate. And I could scoop up the muddy bundle and take it to Bosinver's launderette without trailing it anywhere near a carpet.

The walk was spectacular, but curling up, warm as toast, in front of the fire with generous mugs of hot chocolate, my children's faces glowing from the hours of fresh air remain one of my favourite memories of the break.

Next day dawned sunnier, of course, because we'd arranged to go the under cover Eden Project.

In the spirit of our great green adventure we made our way from St Austell to the project by bus. Irony of ironies, it cost us a staggering £12.75 to travel the hop, skip and a jump to this fantastic ecological experiment. Unusually, there was much chatter among strangers on the bus - everyone giving vent to their anger over the astronomically high charges. Once there though, my nine-year-old really enjoyed the food trail - we saw mango trees, banana plants, pineapples, oranges, lemons and more - although the much-lauded new Core left us all cold.

We missed the last shuttle bus back (it was at 4.30 and the out-of-season ice-rink was operational until 6pm) so cabbed back to St Austell (just £8, bus company take note).W e were off home the following day, and Pat and co were quite happy to look after our luggage (really important when you don't have a boot to store it in) while we romped round the grounds.

This was a great out of season break, just a few days out of time. Although we weren't lucky with the weather, we were lucky with where we stayed - Bosinver has got it right. The wish-we-had-a-cheese-grater/ corkscrew/microwave moment so often experienced when you go self-catering simply didn't happen. Pat really does seem to have thought of everything.

So you don't have to have sun to enjoy Cornwall, you don't have to slum it when you go self-catering and you can leave the car at home. You simply don't need it.

Article from Bath Chronicle March 2007

Bosinver Farm Cottages

CAN YOU REALLY GO GREEN WHEN YOU GO ON HOLIDAY?