Another slow start for me, the more enthusiastic ones were down on the beach walking or paddling, followed by hot drinks. People had mentioned plans, pottering around the local point and beach, and body boarding. For myself I thought it would be good to go to Lee and walk out to Bull Point and back.
Helen’s dad and I went for the walk, we drove to Lee which is a lovely little village nestled into a deep valley. The walk starts in land and very steep up through some woods with lots of rhododendron making it dark and damp. After plenty of huffing and puffing we were out of the woods and into the sun although there was still some ascent to do. The footpath took us over the rolling hills and we had to descend two further deep valleys before we got to Bull Point light house our turn around point. We were hoping that the path back would be less brutal but it was, the valleys have streams in them which eventually need to get to sea level so the three valleys we had negotiated in land were that much deeper when they got to the sea side. Mostly they were steps maintained by the National Trust, most of them very deep. When we finally hit the road again at Lee it could not have come soon enough. The hotel at the bottom and of the village was still shut, and apparently had been for the past 8 years, they were having problems with planning permissions. There was however an Italian place selling food, but J wanted a beer and they did not sell alcohol, so we walked towards the car and dropped into the Gamas Inn where we had a very welcome half of bitter, brewed on the premises, and a cheese and tomato panini, which was very welcome.
When we got back to the hut no one was there, so J went to read his book and I went down to the rocks to see if I could spy the others on Croyde beach, with my binoculars. They were body boarding or swimming (ed: the braver members of the party swimming without wetsuits!). It was an usually high tide, which might relate to the imminent full moon (or Supermoon). We did some tidying up and got ready to go out to dinner, at The Rock in Georgeham, but unfortunately C was feeling ill, so missed out.
I had salt and pepper squid, followed by spaghetti a la vongole, very nice, and cheese cake for dessert. The bonus was that they also sold Timothy Taylor’s Landlord ale which went down a treat.