In the last week or so I have headed back to the South Coast, and then explored a bit of inland Dartmoor too - slowly but surely continuing my ponderous passage to Cornwall, the terminus of my south-west England tour!
With the Easter holiday quickly approaching, and hearing a lot of hoo-hah about the traffic situation down here come Easter weekend, I was a bit worried I had left this highly popular, well-trafficed summer hotspot to the worst possible time! But the horror traffic never eventuated. Was it because I was already here so didn't have to face the M5 pileup in Exeter and the neighbouring A roads? Or is it that 'traffic' for other people involves getting stuck behind slow-ass vans like myself? In the case of the later I'd never catch up to notice and have had no trouble, though I have endeavoured to keep away from holiday beach resorts. But anyway, on with the tour!
From Dorchester I thought I should visit the coast and one of these epic coastal resorts, so I popped out to Weymouth.
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| Weymouth - or maybe Portland or somewhere inbetween the two. |
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| A pleasant pheasant at the camp ground. The van acts like a bird hide at times! |
Shooting past the packed beach (complete with the wee stripy wind breaks just like Mr Bean!) I headed to Portland, to take a quick look at a wee defensive fort and the Portland Bill lighthouse. I was never going to get a park in Weymouth and I wasn't in a peopley mood!
Portland Castle was a wee defensive fortress to protect the harbour from invasion, Henry Something'th time, along with a multitude of other wee forts. It was a bit of a hold out during the English Civil War. Its current use is tourism, weddings, and I think they do cute things like outdoor wee concerts and teddy bears picnics and that out in the lovely back garden.
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| Pow! Portland Castle. |
What I also found interesting was that floating (or maybe sitting) just beyond that wharf above were two massive concrete blocks - like tanker sized blocks of concrete. These were to create an artificial harbour during WW2, but those two never made the crossing - and there they sit!
I had to pop out to visit Portland Bill, the lighthouse at the end of the Isle of Portland.
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| And so I did. Portland Bill. |
Later that day I was flicking through my trusty National Trust handbook and saw Corfe Castle - a bit easterly to be on my way anywhere, but just amazeballs looking, so in the morning I took off out there and bet the crowds.
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| Corfe Castle gatehouse |
The history of Corfe Castle is pretty interesting. The central keep was originally developed in 1088 for one of William the Conquerer's sons (the history is all coming together for me as I visit these sites!) The castle went though a lot of shit and was a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil War (moreso than tiny Portland Castle obviously!) One of the inner gatehouse towers is 4 metres lower than the other and on a lean, from the Parliamentarians tunnelling under and blowing it up with gunpowder. It is said a bunch of the tunnellers blew up too!
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| Part of the original stronghold thing |
From within the Castle you can see down to the wee town of Corfe, built up to support the Castle's economy.
What I liked about this visit (and many visits to the National Trust sites) are the volunteers and medieval stuff that folks get up to. In the below, you can see down just inside the gate house, kids were donning armour and trying their hand at archery (yikes) - its neat.
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| The castle from the neighbouring hillock. I'm not sure what a hillock is but it may be one. |
After that I cocked up my directions (I'm trying not to rely on Google so much) and ended up even further eastward, in Swanage. I parked up to find my bearings and was asked to move on by some dude who wanted to turn his caravan around later. No worries! I said I was just looking up camp sites and would be gone soon, and he proceeded to provide me directions to his favourite site.
The English seem to have a real love for providing directions - and once they're in the zone they're completely oblivious to any indicator that the listener has lost the thread. Even if you're scrambling for a pad and paper they'll keep listing the directions out, like they're making the journey in their mind and cannot stop lest they lose their place. I only ever grab a pad and pen as a politeness anyway - it feels rude to say, 'just give me the name and I'll maps it', so one must wait patiently until the end before 'confirming the name'. My notes could be 'left, right, left, right, hut hut hut' and no-one would notice. I have yet to figure out a polite way to escape it once it begins, but it's a harmless time-waster for the receiver and maybe a delightful trip down memory lane for the deliverer.
In the end I took the mentally lazy way of just booking a caravan club site online, then realising it was pretty similar to just going back to Yeovil. Infact I passed back through Yeovil to get to Ilminster where the site was - what a bloody knob.
In the morning I headed out to Knightshayes Court, a fascinating country manor house and gardens which I wanted to visit on my way to Yeovil but ran out of time. It was good to have more time, the weather was beautiful and I got to enjoy the garden and house at my leisure.
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| Knightshayes Court |
They had a free 'kitchen garden tour' at 2 so I went along not knowing what to expect. What I now know to expect is a slow shuffle with 30 blue rinse brigadiers talking about Rhubarb. I thought I might learn a thing or two about gardening but it wasn't that kind of tour. Our guide was a young dude, pretty chuffed to chat to me, someone only 10 years his senior rather than 50.
The manor was all gothic style and had heaps of hunting crap and smoking rooms and all that, pretty neat.
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| If these pups went all Shining style it wouldn't be so bad! The symbol of these guys was the Talbot dog, JUST LIKE MY VAN. |
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| Bluebells. Its Bluebell central over here right now. |
After that I headed south to Exmouth, figuring I should get my ass into gear and get in to Devon! I thought I might cram in another National Trust spot in, the A La Ronde. An 18-sided house built to house two wealthy spinster crones in the 1800s, I was but 10 minutes late to get inside and see their wacky travel memorabilia.
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| The A La Ronde, Exmouth |
That evening I thought I'd give wild camping a go, without Bryce's know-how on where to go. I figured a 'P' on my tour map was probably OK (car parks), so I went to those spots - and I visited a few, all to find 'NO CAMPING' signs everywhere, and many glares from local dog walkers seeing a camper pulling up at dusk! So with fear of a long nights drive ahead, I went to a nearby campsite who fortunately had space to put me up for an evening of much needed rest. Though I did invest in wildcamping knowledge so I now know what I'm doing. Sort of. Been wild camping the last 4 nights anyway!
At the camp ground I jettisoned my large frying pan and my pointless 12v toasty maker. I shuddered to think how much leisure battery destruction that 12v toaster would do, and the frying pan was too big and stopped me using both my two hobs - a
hobbling situation! I have a bunch of other bits and pieces of shit I need to get rid of too - every spare bit of weight helps when you're doing these distances!
So with my new knowledge I headed down to Budley-Salterton, a comedically named place but lovely enough. It's near the earliest point of the Jurassic Coast, with the cliffs 250 million years old. Triassic Coast! Rich red colour like Australia with the iron. I walked the coast to get to the next point, which had some interesting looking stuff on it. On the way I wondered what the concrete structure was, but as I got closer, the barbed wire fence told me it was a Ministry of Defence firing range - so no point-to-point walk for me!
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| Clotted Cream ice cream! |
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| The other end of my walk - they love their static caravans here! |
I travelled on and had a quick visit to Compton Castle. A wee medieval fortified house, was cool looking but probably not worth the trip if I didn't have free entry!
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| Compton Castle |
Heading on down to the coast, I spent a good nights sleep at an access park near the Coast path. Doing this let me be there at dusk to see this beautiful sunset, and at dawn I was able to hit the track by 7:30am and enjoy hours and hours of peaceful alone time on the track.
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| Dusk at the point. |
From the rural point I was, an hours walk along the coast would take me to Dartmouth Castle, and another half hour to Dartmouth proper. I figured this was the nicest way to get there anyway so I set off in the morning.
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| This wonderful sheltered bay I came across, and sitting in the sun, listening to the waves, not a soul around - I actually dozed! Not like me at all, must be getting old. |
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| Wandering along. Amazing cliffs and coastline! |
Dartmouth Castle, at the entrance to the deep bay, was really interesting. Built originally in the 14th century to defend against French or Spanish invasion (I forget which, maybe both), as ship and weapon technology improved the need to upgrade the fort came with it and the fort was a real hodge-podge of 14th-20th century developments.
The current deployment is a Victorian era battery, but the ticket office is a WW2 gun emplacement for torpedo boats and further around, the square and round towers both hold different eras. The 14th century bit was most interesting to me, with the layers of defence pretty much laid out height-wise as they were on the ships. They'd also hang a big chain across the harbour to the opposite sister-fort, which has now been made in to accomodation. It was just really interesting.
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| The Victorian bit of Dartmouth castle, from the 14th century bit |
After that I wandered in to town and got a wee taste of the business I have been avoiding this Easter weekend. Chokka, so glad I didn't drive! But Dartmouth, what a beautiful wee town - watching the boats was a real pleasure, and the wee ferry was great too. This one ferry was more a tugboat and barge jobby really - the tug would pull the vehicle-laden barge from the dock, then knock into it, spin itself around, moor up alongside it and sort of side-straddle it across the harbour. I took a video, YOU WILL LOVE IT.
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| Wee Dartmouth behind me |
On my return journey from Dartmouth I was seeing just how wonderful this place is. In an earlier entry I wrote about the politeness of the English and what it might take to fire them up. I was taking the piss really. But as I walked and thought of the idea of a place as wonderful and lovely as Dartmouth being threatened, and so many like it, I could see plain as day what would fire the English up. I got a little fired up just thinking about it, how dare some mother fuckers think they can take this stuff away from them! Suffice to say I am still rather enamoured with this country.
I decided to increase the pace of my tour. As my confidence in the van and this travelling plan increases the allure of Europe is growing stronger every day. Not to mention the reports from Terri and Bryce's adventures across the channel! So in the evening I headed around Exeter and down to Bolt Head by Salcombe, to explore more of the southern coastline.
On the way I stopped off at Slapton Sands and sat on the beach a bit, wiggled my toes in the sand. This beach is three miles long, they practiced the D-Day landings here - at the southern end there is a recovered Sherman tank which sank during the exercises.
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| Beaching it up |
I arrived a bit late to do any walks from Bolt Head at Salcombe. Trips from there require a bit of pathfinding where-with-all, maybe a map and compass in some cases, so I only wandered a wee way - but found myself in a farmers paddock, it was magic. I back tracked and found myself on the coast too, looking over to Salcombe.
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| My farmers field. The track did go through it, I am not a complete imbecile. |
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| Salcombe behind me there. |
That evening, as I settled in to sleep, I heard strange noises unlike any birds I had heard before. And then some mighty whacks into the van. I have concluded that these were bats, and while I am a keen star-gazer, I now fear the dusk. Where I stayed in Dartmouth I ventured out and I could just barely make out 'birds' flying past my face. Looking back, thank god my first physical encounter with a bat was through the fibreglass bodywork of the van and not my face!
My final wee coast walk was around a spot called Warren. A nice wee track takes you by wee lambies and some cows on the track, then above a wee town and through an old wood back to the car park.
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| The English sky made a reappearance |
I kinda got the idea of the coast by this point, so I decided to head back inland. I visited Buckland Abbey, former home of Sir Francis Drake. The building was pretty interesting, a former Abbey which was converted into a home by the Gilbert family. Due to the repurposing there are great stone arches where you wouldn't expect and the stonework is mental, it's pretty cool.
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| I had another kip here - what is wrong with me?! But you can see the patchy brickwork there (and a delightful face, not including mine!) |
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| A corridor to the kitchens. If it looks a bit funny perspective wise (not just the curve), it is - the door is tiny! So weird. |
The Abbey had a great exhibition of Sir Francis Drake, and I knew nothing of the Spanish wars and only heard the name of the
Golden Hind so it was really interesting to me. I hope to read some more. The grounds were full of kids, easter egg hunts and that, so I took a longer stroll of the estate to escape them and found myself in some woods. Then I had my snooze.
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| Some woods. |
To get to Buckland Abbey I had to cross through the Dartmoor National Park. Dartmoor is strange, it's really open - you can just wander around where-ever you want. And you can, because it isn't as steep as our mountainous ranges and there are no trees! Just small shrubs and grass which sheep keep down. You drive along and there're just sheep grazing away or doing what they do. The roads feel nice and open too, like home. You're not penned in by hedge rows, you can see to the sides! It's quite a place.
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| Sunset from Pork Hill yesterday. I'm writing this from Pork Hill now and it's just rainy foggy shit, so I am glad I came up yesterday! |
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| A grazing sheep by the open road in Dartmoor. |
Today was an inside day - rain, rain, and more rain. So I went to the Princetown prison museum. A bit weird, going to a working prison museum - but it was pretty interesting. The prison was built after the English had to stop sending all their prisoners over to Australia etc, so of that era originally. Prisoners of war from the American and French wars were held there, and it's in use today.
The museum was pretty wordy, but again I don't know a lot about the War of the Roses, the American Forgotten War and so on so I was lapping it up. Strange to read in a prison museum but it is the kind of information I am keen to recieve!
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| The old prison stables (the museum). |
The weather cleared a bit in the afternoon so I went to Lyford Gorge, up north of here. A nice two hour walk along an amazing gorge, real rain-foresty wetness, reminded me of the west coast - moss on the trees and that. The walk is book-ended by the 'White Lady' waterfall at one end and the 'Devils Cauldron' at the other. The Devils Cauldron, man - my photos do absolutely no justice what-so-ever. Hopefully the video does. I understand how water can hollow a semi-circle, but a sphere? It's pretty fascinating. And the track building itself was pretty well done too, it was lovely. And since it started pissing down again, eventhough there're millions of people around here right now, it wasn't busy.
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| Wandering Lyford Gorge |
I popped up to Lyford Castle (which was a prison really) and this nice church was next door.
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| Lyford Castle at the back. Behind me was a Norman fort - crazy! |
And that gets us back to this present moment. Seven days well spent! Rather than fabricate anything from here I shall just go drive back to the layby from yesterday and eat some dinner. Tomorrow, Cornwall! Ideally I shall be heading against the flow of traffic as the day progresses and I can get my roads back!
