It’s been a busy and very enjoyable couple of days as Joe’s long-standing motorcycling friend, Andy, joined us at the campsite for a few days and very kindly brought the sunshine with him.
On the first full day of his visit we walked to Ilfracombe along the old railway route to do a boat trip and hopefully see some seals. Whilst we stood in bright sunshine on the quay, a bank of fog was rolling in off the sea, reducing visibility to a few feet. The boat’s captain advised there would be a short delay while he radioed other boats further along the coast to see what visibility there was like. It appeared the fog was set in for some time so the trip was unfortunately cancelled. We stopped on the quay to eat our sandwiches and within 30 minutes the fog has disappeared and the coast was bathed in warm sunshine – very galling. We took in some of the sights in town and walked up the Capstone passage to the top of the cliffs to enjoy the magnificent, clear, views along the coast. This time we took the bus back to camp.
A fish and chip van visits the site on a Saturday evening so we decided to try that for our evening meal and the unanimous verdict was that it rated as some of the best, if not the best, fish and chips we’ve had. Thanks Andy.
Our second full day out was a day on the motorbikes combining, hopefully, some good biking roads and good places to visit. Andy set a course east which hugged the coast initially with beautiful views and then took us to Lynton. We parked and stripped to our summer clothes and took the funicular cliff railway down to Lynmouth. On such a beautiful day we had expected (and feared) hordes of people but, in fact, both villages were very calm and showing all their best attributes in the glorious sunshine.
After taking the funicular back up the cliff we headed on following the A39 towards Porlock Hill and branched off onto the scenic toll road through the Porlock estate. More beautiful views to enjoy and the road took us down into the village of Porlock and then further on to the hidden treasure of Porlock Weir where the road ended. We all agreed that it’s probably one of the most scenic places we’ve visited with shingle beaches, a small harbour and views across the Bristol Channel to Wales. There is no weir – the name comes from the rows of stakes that were driven into the beach to catch salmon. The village is so unspoilt that you can imagine it must be used often as a filming location.
Our route back across Exmoor took us through more beautiful scenery and great roads with Exmoor ponies, rivers and quaint villages along the route. A big thank you to Andy for his company and the excellent routes.
What fabulous scenery and thank goodness the sun came out for you xx