The Eden Project

This was a big thing for me, something I had been waiting to see for a long while. Ever since we had seen the announcement one holiday down in Cornwall Dad and I had been saying we were going to visit it one day. In 2002, Dad and I took a trip down to Cornwall staying just outside St Austell for a one week break but it was not to be that trip.

So 2008, my 50th birthday, was going to be the year that finally I finally got to visit the project. We had perfect Blue skies and sunshine, though the wind was a bit on the cold side, having said that it was only the 1st April and we hadn't really had much in the way of bad weather in the UK.


We wandered slowly through the tropical biome first, it is exceptionally hot and humid in this biome and to add authenticity to the climate they were spraying misters which didn't help my breathing (I ended up with a chest infection typical holiday episode : sigh:) just meant I had to take a few more stops (no hardship) and look at the scenery. The planted areas replicated their locations, so you start off in Asia / Malaysia, apart from the smells missing of dried fish you could have been there, through to South America and everywhere else inbetween complete with waterfalls and local birds singing.

It was a still a relief to finally exit the humidity and enter the Mediterranean Biome as that was much drier heat and the sunshine was making it drier and more warm but not as humid as the other one. It is still growing into itself, and though the past 7 years have seen it mature, it will be good to revisit it in the future and see it changing. We finished off the visit with a walk around the gardens outside and the exhibits all around the site, glad I was wearing a comfortable pair of shoes as it would have been sore feet in anything else.

Dad would have loved it, especially the community gardens outside, he would have been comparing how his vegetables looked against those in that section; and probably doing a lot better as he was very green fingered (apart from african violets who never seemed to do well with him).