Devon and Dorset

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Tuesday 24th

Daisy and I packed up and left Brooklands Farm in Happy Valley (I think it's called that, a picture of it was named so in the local pub), leaving the hens to pick the site clean of breakfast crumbs. We went to Polzeath beach for another afternoon of North-Star-by-the-Sea - sun, sand and surfing, before leaving to get back to Plymouth to drop Daisy off. We had five lovely days in Port Isaac and both want to go back there next year.

Daisy went off to a social engagement and her mother, Sam, and i walked round to the Barbican to catch the evening sun - like Padstow, only bigger and less crowded, at this time of the evening at least.

Wednesday 25th

9.50pm - I'm sitting outside the van in a campsite at Salcombe Regis on the south Devon coast, looking at a pink sky behind a Devonshire hill speckled with trees. Soft country music CD on the sound system, and a cup of fruit tea on the side table. I'm still wearing shorts and a sleeveless top and feeling comfortable in it. After dinner I took a walk down the valley across four fields to the cliff top, passing the church built in the 14th century and often used to house smugglers' contraband. Smuggling was a major industry in this area. At the tip of the cliff there were steps down to the beach, but that seemed too much like hard work. I'd already spent the afternoon on the beach at Ladram Bay between Exmouth and Sidmouth after an unplanned stop at East Budleigh. I'd missed the satnav instruction to turn left (singing along to Bryan Adams) and suddenly found myself in 'the birthplace of Sir Walter Raleigh'. Seeing also a garden with more variety of hollyhocks than a garden centre, I stopped at the village shop to ask if there was a museum. There wasn't but the shopkeeper owned the house with the hollyhocks so we had a long gardening conversation before she directed me to a car park near the Sir Walter Raleigh pub, the publican of which is the local Raleigh historian.

Raleigh was born here when what had been a thriving port exporting wool, had declined due to a pebble bank silting up the mouth of the River Otter. The village main street runs beside a tributary of the Otter beside thatched cottages with tiny flowering gardens and pots. There is apparently a pew in the church with the Raleigh family arms on it, but I couldn't find it. There was a statue of him in the village, and a small Dissenters Church to commemorate East Budleigh's other famous son - somebody Conan who founded Salem Massachusetts - his descendants apparently still keep in touch with East Budleigh.

Travelling onto Ladram Bay I found the campsite it belonged to, which was full, but for £5 i could park there and use the beach, and I also grabbed a shower. The beach was pebbly with no breeze; I've been used to sandy beaches and a breeze in North Cornwall, though the sea here is a lot warmer, with fewer surfboards and more canoes and blow-up dinghies.

Thursday 26th

Drove a few miles eastwards to Beer, another historic fishing village, though not as pretty as Port Isaac, few white cottages, more stone grey and flint. A stream runs down the side of the main street in a gully with flower-filled troughs bridging it every few yards. I sat on another steep pebbly beach which keeps me occupied looking for fossils. I love pebbles anyway, the colours, shapes and faces on them and on this strip of coast there is the added potential thrill of finding a fossil. The families around try and stop their kids drowning or decking someone with stones - I'm surprised there are any pebbles left on the beach.

There's a very full antique shop in the car park of the Dolphin Inn with reasonably priced stuff, but i managed to not buy anything. In a local shop I bought a roll and tomato and looked for somewhere to have a picnic. I found a track by a gate into a field just off the main road into Lyme Regis and was happily munching my way through my smoked-bought-in-Cheddar cheese when I heard a tractor behind me that didn't seem to be going past. I peered out the back of the van through the bike rack and bike and the tractor was signalling to come into the field. Traffic was building up behind it. I leapt out of the van, 'Oh, I'm sorry, do you want to get in here?' The farmer didn't shout at me, he didn't say anything, he just looked at me, a possibly ironic smile on his lips. Of course, a gate into a field in the country, is a like a main door into an office, it's there to let busy working people in, not to let townie tourists like me picnic in. I threw my lunch into the sink, backed out and turned inot the car park of the Park and Ride for Lyme Regis while the traffic jam I'd caused streamed past.

Later I visited a friend who'd moved to Burton Bradstock last year, then drove onto Bagwell Farm campsite between Abbotsbury and Portland. This is a very nice site with a large touring field where I camped facing west, watching the sun go down. There's a bar in the Red Barn, previously used as the slaughterhouse where I had a glass of wine. At £21 a night for this site, i intend to make use of all the facilities.

The temperature is warmer here than in Cornwall, less breeze in the day, and no need for a sweatshirt in the evening.



Friday 27th.

I left the site and drove towards Godmanstone to see 'the smallest pub in the world', 20 ft by 10ft. Formerly a blacksmith's where Charles II tried to buy a pint of porter. The canny blacksmith said he was not licensed to sell alcohol, so the king gave him one on the spot. It looked completely shut, but it was only 10.30 in the morning. I hope it's still open, it seemed to be the only pub in the village. On the way there I passed signs for Hardy's monument which I think I saw, a huge edifice that could probably be seen from Dorchester, but there was no car park and as it was on a narrow lane I couldn't stop.

Next destination was Tolpuddle, i couldn't drive this close without going there, the pull of my socialist roots was too strong. I passed through a delightful village; delightful for its situation in the green and gold Dorset fields, its thatched cottages and its name - Piddlehinton; I crossed the River Piddle and went through Puddletown expecting to see Barney Mcgrew or Dibble going about their business. On to Tolpuddle where there is a stirring museum about the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the trumped up charges against them - a group of starving religious agricultural workers - their transportation and eventual pardon after a public outcry. I had an interesting conversation with the lady running the museum shop and we likened the political climate today to the attitudes then - the rich and powerful getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. Outside I sat by the statue of John Lawless staring in despair at the sky. When the present is history, will people look back at the 150 years of the trade unions and wonder what happened to them, or marvel that at one time a day's labour of one man is worth so much, and of another's, so little. ('Some men are more equal than others' - I was re-reading 1984 last week.)

Leaving Tolpuddle in a sober frame of mind I drove due east wanting to travel the entire length of the A27 from just west of Southampton to Pevensey, but shortage of time meant I settled for the M27/A27 instead. All the way along its 100 mile length, there were signs for harbours and waterfronts of the various seaside towns and ports, but I only saw the sea at Havant. I have wanted to travel around the coast roads of Britain, but from this trip I have seen that there would be little point. I visualised something like the Ocean Road in New South Wales - vistas of sea,cliffs and beaches, but so far I've found that roads near the sea are mostly between high banks and hedgerows with just the occasional glimpse of water. I shall have to do it by boat instead.

An interesting sign between Chichester and Arundel intrigued me - 'No horse-drawn racing allowed' - I wondered about the activities of the agricultural or monied youth in the area.

i arrived at Pett, between Rye and Hastings for a week long holiday with family, having travelled about 140 miles today, the most I've done in a day on this trip.

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