JC's Traveblog

After having to regress and re-install Jalbum for a reason that I still do not understand, I have finally managed to publish a web album summarizing our recent trip damper-than-we-would-like trip to Devon and Cornwall. You can find it at:

http://www.curdhome.co.uk/photos/2009_Southwest/index.htm

or, of course, just click on the flappy England flag beneath “2009_Southwest” on our photo album index page.

Today was our originally intended day to travel home. The day dawned sunny – sunnier than anything we had experienced since our first two days of the trip. We didn’t want to go home so we decided to ask the site manager to let us stay a day longer to enjoy this rare appearance of the sun.

Carol remembered an appointment with her optician on Monday morning.

We packed and came home.

This is the weekend of the Ten Tors Challenge. About 400 teams of six youngsters each are let loose on Dartmoor to walk one of three circuits (35, 45 and 55 miles) over the weekend visiting check points on each of ten tors. The whole exercise is organized and managed brilliantly by the army. It transpires that the low flying helicopter ducking under both our radar and cameras was a support helicopter for the Ten Tors event. It must have been on a training flight checking the route prior to the event proper, which began this morning from Okehampton.

We had a grandstand view from Billy Bailey, albeit at considerable distance. As we breakfasted in comfort, we began seeing collections of six ants breaking the skyline of Dartmoor before us and working their way across our field of vision. A neighbour on our campsite assured us that everyone was set loose at the same time but the teams were appearing at oddly regular intervals. This pattern seemed more in keeping with a release at timed intervals rather than a mass, “on your marks, get set, go” sort of affair. However, our neighbour’s son had competed in previous years so she should know.

Since it was another oddly dry day, though the much advertised “plenty of sun” never seemed to turn up, Carol and I decided to join in and do an abbreviated FIve Tors Challenge of our own. We had only one day rather than two, so half the number of Tors seemed fair. As a concession to our lack of youthful vigour, not to mention our lack of training, we also cut the overall distance down to about five miles and returned to the comfort of Billy Bailey for our overnight camp rather than roughing it out on the moors. Our Two Wrinklies Team successfully visited Vixen, Heckwood, Pew, Feather and Staple tors. Well, I say successfully but Vixen Tor was surrounded by a wall with “no public access” scrawled across it. Hrumph! We claim it as a moral success, though. Following our moral success, we showed our appreciation of the dedication and effort involved by cheering on on a few of the real Ten Tors teams as they went by while we sat recovering with a pint of Addelstone’s cider (Cornish Rattler remains superior) after our own far less strenuous event.

The Ten Tors has its critics, of course, in these days of coddling and over-protection. They say it shouldn’t be allowed and is too dangerous. In my opinion, such criticisms are ill-conceived and unfounded. Of course accidents could happen but the support and back-up is extraordinary and this is classic youthful adventure. We should continue to nurture the courage and spirit that embarking upon such an event requires. Guess what – life can be dangerous and it’s as well to be prepared.

Congratulations to all the Ten Tors teams. Just starting takes guts. The distances are serious, it is far from easy walking and their achievements are truly praiseworthy. Bravo!

This afternoon we were expecting another visitor in the person of Jan, the the other half of the now dissolved cafe Cinnamon Girl partnership. Our first order of business was to plan and purchase our evening meal so we shot back into Tavistock to favour Morrisons with some business. Tavistock was chosen largely because we were experiencing the occasional odd blue patch of sky – I seem to have vague recollections of such things in previous summers – and we were keen to take a look at a stunningly located church at Brentor. There is even a well placed car park provided. Crikey! The extremely exposed nature of the church’s location meant that standing up in the ferocious wind to take a picture was precarious but somehow we managed it without mishap.

Jan arrived from Falmouth soon after 3:00 PM. Since the day had remained oddly dry we used the remaining afternoon to complete the walk up to Widgery Cross (460m) which we had failed to reach courtesy of drizzle yesterday. No one seemed in the mood to lug backpacks loaded with camera gear up the tor so we set off unencumbered. Naturally, this was a poor decision. As we rested at the top of the tor to enjoy the view (now that there was one), a military helicopter flew along the valley below us. I’ve never looked down upon a flying helicopter before. No camera – drat! As we were returning we were treated to another intriguing site as a modern shepherd drove his herd of sheep towards the tor with three very hard-working sheep dogs … and a quad bike equipped with a horn which clearly worked very well. No problem getting that through the MOT test (safety inspection, for Amerispeakers). A shepherd’s crook would have looked much more traditional but, with the lack of cameras, a crook really would have added insult to injury.

We rounded off our walk with a refreshing pint of Cornish Rattler at our local hostelry before repairing to Billy Bailey for an evening meal of grilled asparagus with shaved Gran Padano, seafood pasta (scallops, prawns and crayfish tails) and, lastly, mango and pomegranate with Greek yogurt.

When we arrived here on Tuesday and were selecting a pitch (grass or hard-standing, sir?), the friendly people at the campsite said that the only real rain they were expecting would be on Thursday night.

This morning under some intermittent blue, we were going to set off on a 6-mile route to investigate the area surrounding Lydford, including one of the Dartmoor tors that we are looking at from Billy Bailey’s front window. Carol’s phone rang. It was our friend Jon, former proprietor of the Cinnamon Girl cafe in Falmouth, who had recently managed to extricate himself from running said cafe and was finally escaping from Cornwall. We delayed our walk in order to meet him and share a coffee made by a professional as he began his long-awaited walkabout.

We finally began our walk at about 1:00 PM. Gathering murk descended upon the hills of Dartmoor making already-hard-to-follow footpaths even harder to see and drizzle surrounded us from about 2:00 PM. This must have been fake rain.

The real rain began overnight, as advertised.

Having run away from being battered in Cornwall, we haven’t quite managed to escape the cloud which, of course, tends to drift over Devon after it has drifted over Cornwall. However, we have found a new area to investigate.

While the “early morning showers were clearing”, we popped into Tavistock for a few supplies. Tavistock is a slightly strange place for us; strange in that it has very close ties to the Duke of Bedford’s family close to who’s main pad, Woburn Abbey, we live. Seeing a statue of Francis, 7th Duke of Bedford (don’t quote me on the precise number) and seeing street signs such as Bedford Square are apt to make one think that some overnight dislocation has occurred. It’s a pleasant town, though, and apparently not completely swamped by the big supermarkets. The pannier market is atmospheric and certainly worth a look.

Lydford is a compact village. Within easy walking distance of our camp site on the opposite side of Lydford lies one of my kind of National Trust properties, Lydford Gorge. I personally don’t really “do” large houses of the aristocracy but I am interested in what Mother Nature has built. For our afternoon’s entertainment we took ourselves and our cameras on the three mile circular walk around Lydford Gorge and very good it was, too. I suspect we have visited it at its best because it is carpeted with spring flowers and, given the abundant rain we’ve been having of late, the various waterfalls and the so-called Devil’s Cauldron were flowing very nicely. Even my horticulturalist companion was impressed by a couple of unfamiliar species of plants, in addition to the abundance of more regular species.

After a very slow three hour wander around the gorge, life became even better when we called in to the local pub in search of refreshment and found that it sold good ol’ Cornish Rattler cider. What better way to round off the afternoon, especially as I was not driving and could safely have two pints for the first time. I don’t think I’d want three.

This morning dawned a flat, solid, even grey. It then dawned on us that it was time to move on. Old stomping grounds are fine if the weather is reasonable but the familiarity becomes boredom in dull conditions. Carol spotted a Caravan Club affiliated site nestling beneath the western edge of Dartmoor in Devon. The site sounded like us; it had an award for conservation and looked as though it promised a good set of pastures new to investigate, including Lydford Gorge. A phone call eventually confirmed that they could accommodate us and the A-team swung into action on a spur of the moment pack-and-move operation. One instinctively knows when it’s time to move on – and it was. Go with your gut.

After a little more than an hour, we were checking in to the site at Lydford, the wardens of which gave us a very warm reception. As we were registering, they asked if we had a laptop. What? Sociable wardens and free wifi. Being an affiliated site, rather than an actual Caravan Club site, the wardens had clearly not been to the Caravan Club’s charisma bypass school. The wardens are familiar with the walks in the area and offered to make suggestions according to our requirements. Things were looking up dramatically. A guided tour of the site found us a hard-standing pitch with views of some tors on Dartmoor. As we set up, lambs were bleating in a nearby field and the clouds began breaking up a little to allow some sun through. So far so good; it seems like a good last minute decision.

Well, so much for the few dry days in the offing. Now there is apparently another weather front that “may graze the north Cornwall coast” and “may bring a few showers” later in the day. The solid grey sky certainly looked a little angry this morning. We’re also reportedly in for another battering by the wind so we’ve decided to stay put in our relatively sheltered field rather than move 30 miles west to St. Agnes which is a windy location at the best of times.

We’ve twice tried on this trip to do the walk from Carnewas (Bedruthen Steps) towards Watergate Bay but the weather has had other ideas, raining on both occasions almost as soon as we arrived. We’re slow learners so we tried again. This time the heavens did not open as we parked and donned our boots. I’d just like to say that again: we donned our boots. Yes, this time I had both boots and socks in the boot of the car. Bravo!

The tide was in and, there being no possibility of descending the steep steps to the beach around Bedruthen Steps, we simply headed south along the coastal path towards Watergate Bay. The path remained high crossing the tops of dramatic cliffs for the majority of its route with little in the way of major ascents and descents. In better weather it would have been a majestic walk. As it was, today’s gale force winds screaming over the aforementioned dramatic cliffs into our faces became very tiresome and the flat grey sky did nothing for the scenery. I’m sure we both felt, at times, that we were doing it just because it was there. The spring flowers were particularly fine and formed a rewarding highlight, though, and, had there been some sun, they would have been elevated from rewarding to sublime. Still, it remained dry and you can’t have everything.

Having performed our about-turn overlooking Watergate Bay, we were now assisted by the howling wind on our return trip but we were both beginning to have had enough of the relentless battering. A cream tea at Carnewas National Trust cafe went some way to restoring Carol’s well-being. A shower and a bottle of wine should do the rest.

Our poor old damp, soggy field, just as it is beginning to think about drying out a little, more rain dampens it again. Such was the case last night, as forecast. However, we now believe that a few dry days are in the offing so maybe it will make more progress.

We certainly made progress. This time we avoided mechanized transport altogether and set off on foot from our field. The initial half mile is a tad life-threatening being on the relatively narrow but busy road into Rock but, after that we struck out across country towards Polzeath. I suppose crossing the golf course could be regarded as life-threatening, too, but we avoided all errant golf balls and made it to Polzeath unscathed.

We fought our way straight into the very stiff north-westerly wind to get out to Pentire Point, then let the same wind blow us back to Polzeath before continuing around Daymer Bay and along the beach beside the Camel estuary to Rock. As we approached Rock, we were a little taken aback to see three ladies on horses riding along in the estuary. I’ve heard of horses being exercised in water before but not with riders aboard. They were riding bareback because, I assume, that sea water and leather saddles probably do not make good companions. All six participants appeared to be enjoying it though I’d have thought the ladies’ wet riding clothes would have felt uncomfortably cold once out of the water and back in the stiff north-westerly. Brrr!

A dry day was forecast. Joy! The night would apparently be wet again but the day would be dry. A swift sortie to the local fresh fish shop revealed that Rock was beginning to sound more like Sloane Square than Cornwall as the well-shod descended for the Bank Holiday weekend. We took the opportunity to avoid most of the Bank Holiday traffic and travel the short distance to the handy-dandy National Trust car park at Port Quin to descend upon my favourite coastal walk from there to Port Isaac.

Although today was dry, the previous week’s rain had, of course, left all footpaths soggy and muddy. The coastal path wasn’t too bad, however, and some beneficial work seems to have been carried out putting in steps on some of the many climbs and descents along the three mile route. We paused to try a few snaps on the way and took our time dawdling towards our destination. We’d seen a couple of seals on this stretch last year but today the sea was quite turbulent, crashing quite forcefully against the rock so I was not hopeful of a repeat sighting. Nonetheless, I kept an eye peeled for seals again. Sure enough, in a more sheltered bay, we just spotted a tell-tale black head bobbing about in the waves. [Unfortunately too distant for our lenses – ed.]

Port Isaac doubles as Port Wenn in TV’s Doc Martin. The production crew is currently in the area filming a new series to screen later this year. There was no shooting today but a shooting schedule was posted on a notice board adjacent to the harbour. The usual nearly constant stream of tourists was posing for snaps outside the building that plays the part of Doc Martin’s surgery. More accurately, the building plays the external part of Doc Martin’s surgery; it is apparently not used for the interior. Complex stuff, this TV.

To make a change, we chose to return to Port Quin via the shorter inland footpath, the beginning of which proved to be considerably muddier than anything offered by the coastal route. We eventually slithered our way up the first very muddy ascent and emerged on higher ground that offered much easier walking. The path took us beside a sizeable farm complex which was clearly being used as a base by the Doc Martin production unit. In addition to a caravan or two and a few flashy motors, there, in all its glory, was a van dressed up in the colours of “Large Restaurant”. Being a TV star, the van happily posed for a photo but declined to sign an auto-graph.