Exmoor

Having over the past week been west, south and east of our base here in Sourton Down, today we headed north to Exmoor. Initially this involved a long-ish drive through some very scenic country using a lot of very narrow and winding roads. At one stage the road was so narrow the bushes were very nearly touching both sides of the car. We had absolutely no idea where we were or which direction we were travelling, but Jane our GPS friend got us through OK.

Eventually we arrived at Lynton on the north coast of Devon. Although we had some showery rain during the trip there, it was so clear when we arrived that we could see South Wales across a couple of miles of the Bristol Channel. Yes, we had coffee and cake in Lynton. We then took the cliff top railway down to Lynmouth and walked around the shops there for a while before taking the cliff top railway back up to Lynton for another look around before we headed off again.

We drove along some beautiful countryside east of Lynton along cliff top roads, past a group of wild Exmoor ponies, across the border into Somerset and into the town of Porlock.We stopped there for lunch (yet another pub) and more looking around. We didn't stay all that long though, as we were keen to get to our final destination, which was Dunster Castle. Apparently there has been a castle on that site at Dunster for about a thousand years, but the current castle (owned by the National Trust now) was built more recently and is more like a stately home than a medieval castle. The gardens were stunning, but we kept getting wet with more showers passing through from time to time. Inside the castle was very grand, but rather dark. The floors creaked too. :-)

We headed back to base then, with a stop at a Sainsbury's supermarket just outside Exeter on the way to get some dinner for tonight and other groceries. It's great (and far cheaper) not to have to eat out every night. We just get back from our day of gruelling sightseeing and kick back in the villa.

This is the last blog from Devon. Tomorrow we move on to Pentre-bach, near Brecon in Wales. We'll be sorry to leave here since it's been such a fantastic base and there have been so many great places here in the South West.