The South West

20-25 October 2017
Falmouth
We drove from North Wales down to Falmouth to spend a fun 24 hours with Tom; wandering in town, seeing Tom’s university abode and meeting his flatmates. We were intending to stay in Tom’s house, but recent plumbing issues (!) meant we diverted to The Cutty Sark for B&B. Tom drove us   out for a very good dinner at the Pandora Inn located on the pretty Restrongruet Creek  - except it was dark and raining hard as Storm Brian was beginning to take hold, so no evening drinks on the pontoon. Saturday morning saw a windswept walk at the ruins of Little Dennis castle on Pendennis Point before we waved farewell to Tom and drove to Plymouth

Jess & Tom

Plymouth
We spent Saturday afternoon avoiding rain showers, with a trip to The Mayflower Museum, and tea break in Boston Tea Party. Dinner was a totally new but surprisingly good experience: vegan junk food at The Samphire Brasserie! On Sunday Jess, Jake’s friend Fiona and I were driven across Dartmoor by Jake to Drogo Castle, where we had a beautiful walk in hilly autumnal woodland and then visited the castle and gardens. Drogo is the newest castle in England, designed by Edward Lutyens and completed in 1930 - but unfortunately it leaked badly, so is now being re-roofed and re-windowed by the National Trust.

Jake, Fiona, Jess

Cormorant near Castle Drogo Weir

13th Century “clapper bridge” at Postbridge

We finished the day with an Indian takeaway feast for Jake’s housemates, but didn’t wave farewell to Jake who was up at 0600 for his shift at Exeter hospital the next morning.

Dorset & Wiltshire
We started heading East back towards Kent, via the wonderful Stourhead National Trust Estate (Wiltshire)

Stourhead garden

Stourhead House

And then a perfect two nights with the Fentons (my sister) in Bourton, Dorset. They definitely earned a 5* review on Tripadvisor for feeding, entertaining, laundry, clogging up their wifi by downloading all my hi-res photos from the last month (twice!)  etc. Great fun catching up with James, Alex & Georgiana Gray, and Mark Ashley Miller too.

L-R: Chris & Jess, Charlotte, Nick, Annabel, Parsnip & Nicky Fenton