Easter in Devon & Cornwall
- Raff
- Mar 25, 2016
- 3 min read
Devon any time of the year is wonderful. There is a vast coastline and countryside full of gorgeous places to visit, wonderful seafood restaurants to dine in and the beaches- so many beautiful sandy beaches!
Our journey down (or rather, across) to Devon was not the best journeys we have ever made, and actually, it would count as one of THE worst. Perhaps our fault for deciding to visit for the Easter holidays.
We broke our journey up with an overnight stop in a beautiful equestrian centre in the New Forest where we parked up by the stables. It was lovely to wake up to the sound of the horses neighing!
From the New Forest, our journey which the satnav said would be 3 1/2 hours max actually turned in to 9 hours, most of it stuck in heavy slow moving traffic. Not helped by the fact that I had recently embarked on a "drink more water" regime and being stuck in a 12 mile queue with a bladder which felt it was going to explode was no fun, none at all!
Use the onboard loo, I hear you all shouting. Well, this visit to Devon and Cornwall was with my MINI, which I was driving and all I could do was longingly gaze at the white back end of Maurice knowing there was a fully functioning and flushing loo ... but hey!
We decided to bring the car because to do the area any justice at all we needed to explore.
There is no way I was going to drive for this long and then be stuck in a remote (but very beautiful) campsite for an entire week. When we eventually get our car A Framed then it would be perfect for this trip. It's no fun driving alone all that way, even with all my favourite music downloaded on to my iphone and being able to have the climate control just to my liking!
In typical Bank Holiday fashion, it rained. Not just rained, the heavens opened on and off every day, breaking for a few moments (where I've been able to capture the shots below!)
One night we had winds so extreme the van was rocking from side to side, catching the gusts side on. Parts of the site became flooded and I made a mental note to make sure I was overseas for the next Easter holiday!
We have visited Hillhead before- in 2011 I believe. We had booked to fly to Gran Canaria but the Icelandic volcano ash cloud stopped us in our tracks! The airline canceled our flights and we found ourselves with a week and nowhere to go, so we packed up our panel van conversion Bertha and headed South West. The weather was considerably nicer then!
Hillhead is a wonderful site- such amazing views and lots of facilities onsite. There is a club house, swimming pools, restaurant, bar, entertainment, supermarket etc. And directly outside is a bus stop which will take you down in to Brixham which is definitely worth a mooch.
I can imagine it being a very busy destination in the summer.
However, when the sun came out, it was glorious. Those beaches, just gorgeous and so inviting. We did a lot of walking and toured by car a long stretch of the coast, just deciding on the spur of the moment where to head to next. It was a happy and fun adventure.
Our friends Robyn, Dave, Pete and Jill were staying in neighbouring Dorset and we exchanged several weather reports and even saw them passing on their way towards Portesham.
We ate quite well and I cooked up a treat with fresh scallops and fish whenever I could get my hands on some! Maurice was lovely and cosy inside as we were buffeted by the lovely South Westerly winds which are typical of this part of the country.
We even managed to visit Coleton Fishacre, a wonderful Arts and Crafts National Trust property. My camera decided to run out of battery juice just halfway through but I hope you enjoyed this blog post.
I will post a few links to where we stayed and where we visited. Thanks!
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