Day Eight – Wednesday 9th September

Heard ourselves on Radio Scilly over breakfast – Jacqui describing OSL dating as ‘funky’!  Packed up and tidied up ourselves and our samples for the ferry journey home.   Helen set off for the plane back to Bristol in order to shorten her journey to Aberystwyth.  The rest of us went off the Quay in a taxi, dropping off various tools we had borrowed (and broken!) – thanks to everyone who helped out. 

We then went to visit Nornour and its prehistoric settlement and Romano-British shrine.   The island is tiny and provides a good example of rising sea levels – remains on this island indicate a mixed diet of domestic food animals and marine resources – presently the area of Nornour would be hard pressed to support a single sheep.  

On our return we bumped into Terry Perkins, of St Martin’s, who told us exactly where the peat deposits on Parr beach were located and that they are most visible in winter when the sand has been taken away by storms. We think we will need to return much earlier in the year to get good samples from these beach deposits.

After this we finally got to do shopping (buying a number of sets of ‘Scilly Gold’ the board game), lunch at Dibble and Grub (yumm!) and a swim from Porth Cressa prior to jumping on the ferry for our return journey. 

We picked up a hire car and then the team went their separate ways – Charlie staying in Cornwall, Dan (and all of our samples) to Plymouth and Steve, Jacqui and Rhiannon back to Cardiff.