Back in January I visited the Eden Project – I’d visited once before, a few years ago with my family during a summer holiday, but that visit was spoiled by my childish impatience and boredom walking around in the blistering heat staring at plants I had no interest in. This visit was totally different: I live in Cornwall now and my interest in sustainability has grown after watching some amazing documentaries on Netflix and researching veganism. It meant that I saw the project with a new set of eyes, ones much more mature than the eyes of my 14 year old self who just wanted to get back to the beach and read some more Virginia Woolf. I saw its benefits, its wonderful aims for the future, and that all important need to educate people about pressing environmental and trade issues – where does our coffee really come from? Our chocolate? It may not seem that important, but the Eden Project shows you that, in fact, it really is.
For those of you that don’t know, The Eden Project is near St Austell and is famed for its two humongous biomes situated in what used to be a quarry, allowing you to experience the largest indoor rainforest in the world and see thousands of exotic plants. The easiest way of getting there if you live on campus or neaby is to get a train to Truro, then another short train ride to St Austell and then a bus from outside the station straight to the Eden Project – it might seem like a bit of a trek, but it took me about an hour an a half (including the stop over time) and the benefit of using public transport is that if you show a bus or train ticket when you’re buying your entry ticket, you get a discounted price on top of the student discount!
Side note: I’d say you need to be prepared clothing wise if you plan on going, as I completely forgot that I was about to walk around two biomes intended to replicate the environmental conditions of the rainforest and mediterranean. Make use of the cloak room, don’t do what I did and layer up in fleeces and jackets only to wonder why I was turning red in the face as I walked round. Seriously.