Cornwall to Devon in the rain -(24th August)

We had a late start leaving Fowey this morning, and since we have had an extremely slack week, with lots of eating and drinking and not a lot of exercise (also somewhat inspired by the amazing rogaining effort of the Colwells in their rogaine ) we agreed that this morning there would be a run.

When we woke, the rain was falling, but we are orienteers, and what is a little rain when we are on a mission? So we handed in our key and out we went into the "Cornish liquid sunshine" . As we walked down through the hotel gardens the harbour sat grey and cold in front of us. The little boats were wishing they were in a nice warm harbour. Space is a premium in Fowey. The streets are very narrow, and the houses are set on the steep hills surrounding the harbour. We saw a number of cars parked in close to the walls on the edge of the street where the driver must regularly have to climb out of the passenger side. The driver's side is within 10cm of the wall! We soon found, and followed a "public footpath" cutting away into some woodland. The path gave us a good workout as it rose gradually, while to our left the land dropped away quite sharply to the mixed oak, beech and inevitable blackberries. We were hoping to find a cliff path and follow it around the edge of the headland, but never did. At one stage we cut down through a corn field into another signed footpath, but the track became very slippery and had lots of nettles, so we backtracked again.

Needless to say today we carried some extremely soggy shoes and clothes in our luggage. Hopefully we will have a chance to get them dry tonight. We appreciated our hot cooked breakfast after the run as we lingered over our cup of tea, looking out over the lovely harbour,

and then made our way down into the town through the very narrow streets so see the old church destroyed by the Spaniards in the 1300s and rebuilt by the locals. I feel slightly uncomfortable about the idea of dead guys lying in a church where people worship ( except if it is their funeral). I'm also unsure about skulls used as decoration in a church. I did like the nautical themed stained glass and also the bell ringers pledge ( complete with fine of sixpence for wearing your spurs when ringing the bells).

We arrived in Polperro in the pouring rain, walked around in the pouring rain, had a Cornish pastie and cuppa inside to get out of the pouring rain, and then caught their little electric tram back up to meet the bus again. The weather put a real dampener on this little visit to a quite cute tourist town where the creek runs in through the town directly between the houses (against the walls). This creek was running so fast that it was brown with mud. The brown colour was running into the harbour, colouring the whole area brown.

We arrived back at the bus very wet, and stripped off the jackets to hang as we rode onwards towards the border with Devon, and a hurried look at Buckfast Abbey.

The abbey was first founded in 1018, fell into disrepair, and a mill owner built his buildings from the ruins,( do your believe that? ) but eventually in the early 1900s it was re dedicated and has an active monastery there still. They make their own stained glass and had a lovely (more modern) stained glass window at the front of the church. They also had a physic and a sensory garden, and a wonderful smelling lavender garden with huge bees doing their work in it.

Onwards, ever onwards we travelled through Honiton... Renowned for it's lace (used in Queen Victoria's wedding dress) following the way of the old Roman road. This is also on the Trafalgar way - a commemorative route which remembers the battle of Trafalgar. Apparently when Nelson was killed at the battle of Trafalgar it took ten days for the news to make it to Falmouth by sea. It was then delivered posted haste to the the king by a man on horseback who rode the Trafalgar way. The one rider rode towards London for 37 hours, only stopping to change his horse 21 times!!!

Continuing on through the rolling Devon hills, we passed Axminster (of carpet fame) to get to our home for the night - the Fairwater, which is a country house , not really anywhere, right on the border between Devon and Dorset. (quite near to Lyme Regis)

As we neared the hotel we noted again some solar arrays out in the paddocks. We've seen quite a few of these on this trip, along with many wind turbines- big white, three winged ones very similar to the ones on the ranges north of Adelaide. Obviously at least some of the English think that this is a good plan.

Now once again we were relying on sketchy internet connection, so the blog never uploaded.  Hence I'm now comp,eating it and uploading a day late.  Today will have to wait until tomorrow, as we are tired and it is already getting late.
Goodnight all.