Yes .. this will be the fifth year that we will have spent Christmas and New Year in Eva the Eriba....
Every winter season we have over wintered down here in Devon and this year is no different.
For the first three years we spent the season at the C&CC site near Tavistock and we really enjoyed ourselves there with a good group of people and some fantastic site managers who always put on a get together on Christmas and New Years Eve.
They then moved to a different site in a different part of the country and the new managers didn't exactly fit in with the 'friendly club' tag line...
Last year we found our current location just a few miles out of Tavistock....
It's a private site and we enjoyed it so much last winter that we are back again for our second winter season here...
It's quite surprising the number of people who decide to spend the Christmas and New Year on a campsite in their RV.. motorhome or caravan with some even braving it in a tent.. although with all the wet weather we have been having it would be only the very brave or foolish that will attempt tent camping this year I think......
Anyway we are now preparing for our Christmas here on the edge of Dartmoor and I would like to wish everyone out there on the 'blogosphere' the very best of Seasons Greetings to you all.
The Purpletraveller blog will be back again early in the New Year....
Sunday 15th December 2019.....
Today we have travelled back up to Dorset to visit my daughter and also to attend yet another MRI scan at Poole hospital.
We didn't leave the campsite until about 1400hrs and the morning was quite dry and sunny although it was cold....
About 45 minutes before we started our journey the heavens opened and it poured with rain...
The roads were very wet but it didn't seem to slow people up as lots of cars flashed past us at silly miles an hour....
As we approached Honiton we encountered a really bad hail storm which turned the road into a skating rink and one car seemed to have braked too hard and spun out of control careering straight through the centre reservation destroying the reservation cables as it carried on across the opposite carriageway ending up embedded into a bank....
The hail that had fallen had not melted but had frozen as it hit the road and had just accumulated on the roadway making it take on the characteristics of an ice rink...
Perhaps if the driver had kept his speed down he would have avoided this accident...
Anyway we stopped off in Honiton for a natural break and when we set back off again we found that the eastern side of the town had really dry roads with no sign of the previous bad weather so the rest of our journey proved uneventful.
A couple of images below showing the ice rink like conditions in the main car park at Honiton....
My MRI scan is scheduled for early Wednesday morning and following lunch in Poole we will be heading back to Devon in the afternoon.
Hopefully our return journey will be less eventful...
If there are any further developments I will keep you informed.
Yes. .the settled weather didn't last long before we had more strong winds and rain...
Walking on the moor there are signs of damage caused during the last bout of strong gale force winds....
The trouble with the moor is that it is so open that there is nothing to break the speed of the winds..
Having said that I have to admit that one of the things that I have always enjoyed about walking in wild landscapes is the wild weather that goes with the territory....
Back at the caravan site we have had to close our pop top roof yet again... It's no real problem for us as we both have headroom with the roof closed..
Looking at the weather forecast for this coming week it seems highly likely that we could have the roof down for most of the week....
Today we went into Tavistock to visit the Christmas tree festival at St Eustachius church.
We have visited the festival most years that we have stayed here over the festive season....
It's always nice to see all the trees that have been dressed by various local businesses and organisations in the area and it helps to raise funds for charity.....
Following our visit we went across the road to the Bedford Hotel for afternoon tea .. and very nice it was... although probably a bit too civilised for me :-)
Over this past week until today we seem to have had wall to wall rain and strong winds.....
The campsite that we are staying on is towards the top of high ground overlooking the river Tamar and across to Cornwall.
Any strong winds coming in from the south west can hammer across towards us and on a couple of occasions over this past week I have had to lower our pop top roof both for safety and also to make it a bit quieter for us to allow us to get a good nights sleep.
The constant bad weather has really restricted our activities...
We really have been doing not a lot.
No cycling and no walking on the moor that is unless you wanted to end up completely soaked.
Even the best wet weather gear that you can buy wouldn't have been able to keep you dry over this past week...
Then today arrived...
What a lovely day we have had....
Yes it has been cold but it was dry and the sun was out and it does really brighten everything up including our mood.
The cold I can live with much better than I can the rain.....
Mind you having said that looking at the national weather forecasts we always seem to have some of the warmest or should I say less cold weather down here in the southwest than the rest of the country...
The forecasts are telling me that we should be able to enjoy some more settled weather over this coming week so walking and cycling should be back on the agenda.
Below are some images of our campsite..the lane outside the site and this evening's sunset looking over towards Cornwall....
