We had a pleasant leisurely morning. Breakfasting, reading, gaming and playing a bit of football. The wind break remains up but the wind has now virtually gone.
At 1pm we headed off to Lynmouth / Lynton - arriving around 1/4 to 2. Amazingly we stumbled across a perfect (and free) parking spot - the village was very busy and the pay and display car parks crammed full so that was a considerable bonus!
Lynmouth is such a pretty place - it’s hard to believe the devastation caused from the 1952 flood! As it happened we went on quite a special day in Lynmouth’s history ... the wonderful old gothic looking hotel perched right up on the top of the cliffs was being bulldozed to make way for some other development! Kim and I had first come to Lynmouth on our honeymoon - 40 years ago!! Apart from the disappearing hotel, not a lot had changed.
In typical fashion, as soon as we arrived we wanted something to eat. We bought a rather splendid takeaway (I had homemade crab pasty) from a wee cafe / deli right by the harbour. Harry said it was the best lunch ever! A little over dramatic but it was good! We ate it on the stoney beach.
We decided to wander up to the LLCR (Lynmouth & Lynton Cliff Railway) and get a return trip on the old Victorian funicular. The queue was huge - the chap estimated over 45 mins! Not something that any of us fancied, so we decided the best plan would be to drive up to Lynton and see what the queue was like up there. It seemed rude not to buy an ice cream on the way back to the car. Guess what flavour the Twinnies had?
I had forgotten how steep the road hill was up to Lynton? The sign said 18% which, I think, in old money is about a 1 in 5 gradient! I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be towing Brunnehilda up there!
We parked up and found the top of the railway. The queue was indeed tiny so we were soon enjoying the view as we headed back down to Lynmouth.
Once at the bottom we visited the toy and beer shop- yep, there is a shop in Lynmouth that sells toys and local beers and ciders - what’s not to like about that?! So toys and beer were bought!
We also had time for a 10 minute rest by the river and the boys and I paddled our feet - it was blimin’ freezing! The plan fell apart then ... there was still a 45 minutes queue for the Cliff railway to get back up. After a brief discussion about options - including walking up the steep steps to the top - we decided to sit it out in the queue.
By the time we got to the top it was gone 5 and we just headed for the car and pointed her back to Woolacombe.
We literally threw all the beach stuff in the car and headed for Woolacombe beach car park and the cheap parking -after 6pm.
There was no sun but it was pleasant enough and the sea was very warm. Charlie enjoyed body boarding and the Twinnies just raced around lapping up every moment - as only 5 year olds can do! Once the water fun was done with there was a lot of sand based activity before we trudged back to the car.
They say there is no gain without pain and the gain of a nice session on the beach is an equal match for the pain of sand bloody everywhere and that horrible job of getting 3 wet / sandy boys “car ready”!
We decided to head for the Thai takeaway in Braunton. It looked nice and it must be - there was a 1 hour wait for food. We might have waited but the kids wouldn’t last out so we found an empty Chinese takeaway down the road. We discovered that there was a good reason why it was empty - it was poo!
Anyway we drove home and none of us really ate much. Partly because it was late and folks were tired and partly because it was poo!
The boys were too tired to watch a DVD. We went through the motion so of putting it on but all 3 were asleep by the time the adverts were over!
Harry joins us in bed tonight. Laura is due down tomorrow and it’s due to be hot!
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