Travel: The Scilly season, all year round

As far as Britain's rail schedulers are concerned, winter starts tomorrow. But in one far-flung corner of the kingdom, summer should linger for a few weeks yet. Frank Partridge discovered that at the outer limits the weather doesn't conform to the British norm

I HAD always imagined the Isles of Scilly to be a kind of weather- beaten extension of Cornwall, in the way that the Isle of Wight is different from Hampshire only in that you have to cross some water to get there. The weather, of course, would be extreme. A combustible mix of the wild North Atlantic sky and the Caribbean-warmed waters of the North Atlantic Drift. OK, so the Scilly daffodils come out before Christmas, but we took no chances and packed for all four seasons in one week.

In every other way, I assumed the islands would resemble their picturesque neighbour less than 30 miles to the north-east. Plunging valleys and cliffs; coves and caves at the end of precipitous paths; fast-flowing rivers and lonely moorland settlements with unpronounceable names; afternoon cream teas and evenings in ancient smugglers' inns.

I was spectacularly wrong. The Scillies are quite unlike anywhere in Britain. We may have been lucky, but the clouds that shrouded most of the mainland all week simply passed the islands by: with no point of land higher than 150 feet there was nothing to attract them.

It is this lack of highs and lows, of both topography and temperature, that is the clue to the Scillies' unique character. Their granite is whiter and softer than Cornwall's. The winter winds have fashioned the edges into shapes as other-worldly as the most preposterous set in Star Trek. There is, too, a softness about the people - perhaps the result of living in a virtually car-free environment, where any significant journey has to be made by sea and is therefore hostage to the uncertainties of time and tide... and the personal requirements of whoever is skippering your boat.

Our first ferry trip, on which we were the only passengers, was held up not by an unexpected squall, but by the captain's greater need of a bacon sandwich and a cup of coffee.

The shallow sea that, sometime around 400 AD, rose up and converted a single mass of land into a circular cluster of 100 different islands (only five of them now inhabited), is rarely impassable, and every day The Road, as it is known, between St Mary's and Tresco, becomes the setting for a bewildering amount of nautical activity - both man-made and natural. One crossing between the islands was enlivened by a horde of low-flying cormorants stirring up the waves like a Spielberg D-Day scene as they homed in on an unseen shoal of fish.

Out on the wild, mysterious Western Rocks, approaching the Bishop Rock lighthouse - England's last toe-hold in the Atlantic, looking out at 3,000 miles of empty ocean - teeming colonies of shag, puffin and grey seal somehow find a piece of terra firma they can call home.

Putt-putt round a headland back to the sheltered bays of St Agnes and you encounter giant hydrangeas that make the mainland versions look like alpines. But enthusing about the flora and fauna of the Scillies is like a pyramid-lover telling you how wonderful Egypt is. We knew that already. What we never imagined was that such a small portion of earth and ocean could provide so many sensory delights that it would take months, not a mere week, to explore properly. The light, for instance: it is what photographers and artists crave when they draw back the curtains in the morning - so intense and sharp that even the most ham-fisted point-and- clicker should return with a portfolio that would not disgrace a professional.

Despite a week of exhausting outdoor activity, we only scratched the surface of the guidebooks' "must sees". Slightly to our shame, we decided to leave the fabled gardens of Tresco until next time, content to view its African-bush skyline from our neighbouring island, imagining we were sleeping in the Serengeti and not 30 miles from Newquay.

St Mary's is every visitor's point of arrival and departure, containing more than half the islands' resident population of 2,000. It is a proper town with a secondary school, a hospital, an airport, a golf course and the holiday home of a former Prime Minister. Barely a mile down a coastal track in the churchyard where Lord Wilson is buried, swaying palms and exotic plants look out on cliffs and sand that could have been transported from Jamaica. "Harold made sure he bagged the best spot", said a knowing visitor.

But the gem of the islands is St Agnes, a mile-wide blip slightly detached from the inner circle and remote even by Scilly standards. Here, the extraordinary rock formations take your breath away. St Agnes' sharply indented coastline offers a new view at every turning so a simple stroll is interrupted by a dozen diversions. A worse-for-wear church contains a quietly moving history of the island's long-retired lifeboat: the crews that were saved, the others claimed by the sea.

The narrow lanes, framed by the kind of hedgerows most of England dug up in the Fifties, teem with unfamiliar butterflies. Island news is chalked on a blackboard outside the village store: "Porpoise sighted in Beady Pool". You stumble across a miniature maze overlooking the last rocks of England. It is so tranquil here that after a day or two, even St Mary's seems like a metropolis.

On St Martin's, an art gallery is left open and unguarded, displaying pictures worth hundreds of pounds, with an honesty box at the door. And yet the familiar trappings of British life are all there if you need them. With a tail wind, you can have your copy of The Independent by 11am. One balmy afternoon on St Agnes, we idled away an hour outside the Turk's Head, drinking ale and sharing a pasty, waiting for the ferry to take us back to St Martin's.

There was a sudden flurry of activity in the harbour below. Three men and a sniffer dog sped out to sea in their Customs launch in search of who knows what. Our boat eventually came in and we hopped from island to island, disgorging and picking up passengers. The September sun beat down.

As we neared home, passing the tiny island of Tean, we spotted a familiar navy-blue vessel moored off an absurdly white beach. Our intrepid Customs men, now in shorts and stripped to the waist, were conducting their inquiries in a state of, er, sun-drenched repose. The likelihood of a major seizure of contraband seemed slight: Tean has not been inhabited for centuries.

Want to cut the stress out of your life? How about a job with HM Customs on Britain's little-known corner of the Garden of Eden?

Fact File

FRANK PARTRIDGE paid pounds 90 return for the 25-minute flight from Penzance to St Mary's with British International Helicopters (01736 363871). There are flights daily, except on Sundays, from Penzance to St Mary's and Tresco. A pounds 65 fare is available for stays of up to four nights, and there is a pounds 58 standby ticket for up to three days.

You can also fly to St Mary's on a fixed-wing aircraft with Isles of Scilly Skybus (bookable through the Isles of Scilly Travel Centre, 0345 105555), which uses St Just airstrip near Land's End. The adult return fare is pounds 85; a day-trip is pounds 54 return. You can also fly in from Plymouth, Southampton Exeter, Newquay or Bristol.

Scillonian III, also run by the Isles of Scilly Travel Centre, sails the return Penzance-St Mary's journey daily, except Sunday, to 5 October; from then until 31 October there are sailings on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays before ceasing completely until a week before Easter.

The adult return fare is pounds 62; a day trip costs pounds 30 and allows over four hours on St Mary's. Tourist information, St Mary's: 01720 422536.