We are not at Two Bridges, I don’t even know where it is, but I saw 2 Bridges today so that near enough. We’re in Westward Ho! It’s the only place name I know that really has an exclamation mark. I’ve used them for some ‘exclamable’ places before but this one has an official one. Dined at the Wayfarer Inn in Instow last night and I had some delightful mussels. The sauce was garlic, a little browned onion, some butter and slightly thickened probably with Devon cream and it was delicious. Also had some scallops that were sweet and pretty good but the mussels were a tough act to follow. Because we were so close to the sea Julie had some nachos! The pub is full of ‘kitch’ seafaring icons but it’s not coy or fake. ... read more

Same sort of story as usual, lots of photos (Julie takes them as her camera has better resolution) and a bit of blog in an attempt to explain what’s happening. We are back in day 2 time, so we are walking from Combe Martin to Wollocombe through Ilfracombe. Due to a very tight BnB market our walking company arranges a return taxi for us so after slogging our way over 23 km with an elevation gain of about 850 m we were driven straight back again. Out of Combe Martin the path unsurprisingly goes up and up and along and down and up and along in the usual manner. The path meanders through a plethora of holiday parks, holiday camps and even some holiday ‘paddocks’ with some pretty primitive facilities but all seemed busy. It is ... read more

Wow, thought that Simonsbath would be too small to register but it has come up in the location finder and it also made an appearance in Facebook in their ‘places’ section. Admittedly Facebook had some ridiculous comment like ‘within city limits’ attached but I was still impressed. I have dropped a heap of photos in the blog here but you will need to access them via photos. Really they are the same as those broadcast through Facebook but there’s a little description that accompanies each here. We walked about 22 km today which sounds like the real thing but ‘false start’ we were not actually at the starting line. More precicely we we’re almost at the finishing line but doesn’t matter. We walked to Withypool and back but our return route was a little too circuitous ... read more

Currently enjoying the romance of travel, that esprite de corps that comes from shared experiences and that spirit of adventure as we head off as Julie, I and 500 of our closest, new friends await (in the wee hours Abu Dhabi time, the silly o’clock Aussie time and the unknown hour UK wise) for our connecting flight. The airport here is huge, there are 62 gate in this terminal alone. We however as transit passengers experience just a small section although already it has seen us go through 2 security checks and all that’s got us is into the departure lounge. I think we have only 15 minutes or so more to wait but it’s difficult to tell as there are so few clocks in the terminal. Julie’s smart phone is smart enough to know where ... read more

Ahhh English. ‘Common’ topographical terms used on the maps and in the guide books I’m using at the moment include the following: a barton, a beare or beer (and no it’s not a drink!), a bury, a cleave, a combe or to further complicate things a coombe, a cott, a dean, a down or dun, a ham, a lan, a leigh, a lyn, a mew, nose and a mouth, a pil or pill, a stoke, a ton, a tout (but only used in Dorset), a warren, a wide or wake and then there are the particularly and specifically Cornish terms of bal, bod, bos, carn (a walker’s favourite in any language or spelling), Carrick, cos, close, ty, che, Dina’s, du, shut, envy’s or ennis, gwyn, hal, hen, hayle, ken, kernow, lis or liz, loe or looe, ... read more