Sunday 25th June 2023
Following a restful afternoon and an early night, today we’re off exploring this part of Devon, but firstly Christine decided to set us up for the day by cooking a “full” and I mean a “full” English; first for some time too!!!
The weather isn’t looking too good this morning, very overcast and during the night the wind got up giving our awning a “run-for-its-money” which apparently kept Christine awake at times. The forecast is overcast during the morning, 30% chance of rain at 1500hrs followed by sunshine, good traditional English holiday weather!!!!!
After the “substantial” breakfast and clearing up we headed out. Mark has recommended a good walk where the dogs would have good exercise, Christine would get her steps in and I can go on Solo (my scooter). Our final destination was Bull Point Lighthouse but to-get there we had to park the car in the village of Mortehoe, some one and a half miles away. This 3-mile walk will be a test for Rosie’s short legs, Christine’s stamina and probably more importantly, Solo’s battery power as we had been pre-warned it was “up hill and down dale”!!
We arrived at the Mortehoe car park, passing a quaint looking building serving cream teas, treat for later🤪🤪, parked and headed up the lane. We did try and get nearer but that was impossible, a very narrow lane with yellow lines everywhere!!!!
Mortehoe is a pretty little village that can trace its origins back to the Doomsday book and beyond. Always a farming community, but in former years it was a base for smugglers and wreckers. Since the coming of the railway in the 19th Century, Mortehoe became much more dependent on tourism, with numerous holiday camp sites all around.
We headed up the hill, two dogs with Christine in charge and me on Solo carrying the dogs water bowl, water and various cloths. Jolly good this scooter’s basket!!! Passing a number of beautiful second homes until we reached the big gate across the road; from here it is National Trust property and looking at Google, the lighthouse should be just around the corner; wrong. The lane twisted up and down causing great concern for Solos’s battery capacity. Along the way we met numerous hikers and when asked, we were told the lighthouse isn’t very far. In distance they were correct but it was the hills that bothered us. Anyway after a considerable distance I was really panicking, going down hill was fine but gong up again, well????? We arrived at another gate and we decided I wouldn’t go any further, I think Christine was concerned she may have to push me back up!!!
Eventually Christine and two knackered dogs re-appeared and confirmed we’d made the right decision; firstly there was another steep hill to go down, then back up and secondly, well it was a bog standard lighthouse, so hadn’t missed much!!!
Our trek back was ok except one particular hill was too much, too steep and Solo needed a push, thank you Christine. At the point we arrived back at the National Trust gate, poor Rosie was completely shattered so she also finished up in the basket!!!
Arriving back in Mortehoe we headed straight for the cream tea place, after all we had earned it only to be told they had sold the last cream tea🥵🥵🥵. Disappointed or what?? We just had to make do with a piece of cake instead😩😩😩
Back at the site I set up the bar-b-q only to find I had got the wrong connectors; as I mentioned yesterday this is our first outing purely for a holiday, so again tonight’s meal fell to Christine to prepare.
Tonight we were going to watch Elton John at Glastonbury, but oh dear, another failure. I’d remembered to bring our IPTV black box with the necessary leads etc but forgot the zapper to operate everything!!!! So we played crib followed again by an early night, it’s the Devonian air making us tired.
Tomorrow we will head out again