Back to Woolacombe (3rd time!) - 1st Sept ‘ 20

We left it at the height of Storm Francis but we returned to Damage Barton, for the 3rd time this summer, under blue skies and 18 degrees sunshine. 

Kim and I stayed overnight at a Premier inn at Exeter. We popped into Darts Farm (we knew from last year) for breakfast and then drove the 70 miles up to Woolacombe. The breakfast was Ok but nothing special - although my strange choice of Eggs Royale probably didn’t help. I’m sorry but Smoked salmon really doesn’t go with Hollandaise sauce!

We arrived at Damage Barton at about 12.30. It was lovely to see them all. We caught up sitting in Isabella before heading out to Barricane Beach. They had done a good spring clean on Brunnehilda removing all evidence of a week of Twinnie / Charlie abuse! There were a couple of little “breakages” appeared over the week but, to be fair, both were borderline warranty issues. The usb connector has become dislodged and can’t now be accessed and the front window blind is split so is hard to keep down.

The sea was really rough so the planned kayak launch didn’t happen. The whole beach visit didn’t happen at one stage ... I managed to lose my keys when parking up! We knew they were somewhere in the car as it would still start! 30 mins later we found them on the roof!! Needless to say I received lots of helpful feedback from my wife and daughter on how I might avoid repeating my faux pas!!

We spent a lovely couple of hours on the beach - clambering over rocks, paddling in rock pools and, of course, taking the opportunity for a swim. Although it was so rough, we couldn’t get out very far.

We wandered up to Woolacombe for an ice cream, a wee shop and a quick blast on the mini racing cars, before Laura, George and boys said goodbye and started the long journey home.

Kim and I headed to the sunny upstairs balcony of The Captain’s Table. The view was splendid as we caught the last rays of the afternoon sun. The food was ok although we did manage to over order on the chips!!

Back to Damage Barton via a petrol film up. During which we bumped into an old Volvo colleague! Small world eh?

It seemed to take ages to strip the inside and then take down Isabella. By the time we had finished it was pitch black! For some reason (I guess old age might be the best guess!?) we were both very tired so after reading and snacking it was time for bed!

Walking to Woolacombe - 1st Aug ‘20

Let me start of with a bit of a moan - best to get it out the way and off my chest. My skin crawls when I come across any sort of ‘ism. Racism and Sexism are rightly becoming more and more rivalled - thank goodness. In fact the only sort of ism left that seems to be left unchecked is heightism. I could go on about aircraft seats but that’s not the issue that’s exercising my sense of injustice this week. This is such a nice site in so many ways so why oh why do they think sizeist washrooms are acceptable? 

When the person put this mirror up they had a choice to make - they could make it work for 4 ft 9 inch to 5ft 9 inch people or 5 ft 2 inch to 6 ft 2 inch people. They choose the former when all the laws of decency, statistics and average male heights where screaming out for then to chose the later! There is no acceptable reason for this - and I don’t believe it’s ignorance- other than a bias hatred towards any one over 5ft 9 inches! And before you bleat on about things being put up high on supermarket shelves, imagine a shelf system with nothing down below than a purposely left 3 ft gap with shelving extending up to 8 foot - there would be a bloody outcry.

You’d think with this being such a big issue for me that we had a bad day today? Nothing could be farther from the truth - we had a splendid day.

It started with a cheese and mushroom omelette which is the only way to start a good day. A lot of lazing about and reading while the weather improved from grey to sunny spells. 

We were locking up the van at about 1pm. We had decided to walk into Woolacombe - via Mortehoe -  about 3 miles each way?

We knew the way very well by now as we had walked across the fields to Mortehoe twice already this week and made the drive in between Mortehoe and Woolacombe more times than that. The walk along the road, which is fabulous by car, is even more impressive by foot. You see so much more when you are not driving - there were some mighty impressive properties all the way in. There isn’t really a gap between the 2 places, they just merge into one.

We bought a coffee from a converted horse box in a lay-by and then found a bench on the cliffs edge and watched the surfers for 30 mins or so. We came to the conclusion that surfing was rather like fishing - 95% waiting and 5% activity / excitement. That said, it would still be really cool to be able to do it!

We finished our walk into Woolacombe and had a quick look round - it was very busy although the beach wasn’t as busy as the 2 days we were on it! We bought a pasty and headed on up the Mortehoe Road to try and find somewhere nice to eat it.

We luckily stumbled on a lovely place - again not visible when in the car - called Barricane Beach. It was a tiny little cove, especially as we were there when the tide was in, with a  shop / takeaway specialising in Sri Lankan curries. The curries where available from 5pm and it was now 1/4 to 4. So we ate our pasties sitting against the rocks on the beach watching the world go by. The sun was more out than in at this stage so it was very pleasant.

Now I can resist most things but a swim in the sea is a hard one for me. Luckily I had my trunks with me so my craving was fulfilled. 

It was soon 5pm and we joined the queue for the curry. It was clearly a popular place as within 10 mins there was queue of 20 people all the way up the slipway down to the beach. I have to say it was lovely - I succumbed and had chicken. We shared a portion between us. Unlike me, Kim avoided the flesh and stuck to the Dahl, sauce and rice. 

We went a different way home. Walking up a very steep National Trust path, through a beautiful little glade and then into another campsite. We walked through the site and then were only about 1/2 mile away (along the main road) to our campsite. 

A smashing circular walk, a swim, a curry, a laze on the beach, a coffee watching the surfers ... what’s not to like?!

We had a cup of tea and watched a DVD - First Man with Ryan Gosling playing Neil Armstrong. It was good - 7 out of 10 probably.

In between 2 film watching sessions we took down Isabella and loaded her up in the car. There is always a touch of sadness taking her down as it normally means the trip is over.

The smashing day was finished off with a late night call from my old Volvo buddy, Barrie Collins. So the world was put to right by two 61 year old codgers before the blog was finished and the light turned out on the first day of August.