Cabin Fever .......

 Sorry for this week's posting being three days late but like the rest of the UK last weekend saw the arrival of storm Ciara and our internet connection disappeared..

 We were forced to stay in the van for a couple of days..
 Living in a small tin box is one thing but when you are forced by the weather to stay inside a space that is smaller than a prison cell for more than 24 hours you really do start to comprehend the term 'cabin fever'.
 Our 'Jolly Roger' flag flying on the front of our A-frame was beyond flapping..for most of the time it was blown absolutely straight. 

 As I have mentioned before, our pitch faces SSW overlooking the Tamar valley so we were getting the full force of the storm..
 Luckily with the pop-top roof closed and the aerodynamic shape of the Eriba the wind seems to blow over the van quite well and if the direction of the wind does change we are well protected by trees from all other points of the compass ... 

One morning I was looking out of the front of the caravan when a porch awning came flying over the dividing hedge and started to roll over and over between the caravans in our touring van section ...
 Next thing I saw was the owner of the awning come running around the hedge trying to catch his awning.
 Luckily a couple of of campers managed to catch it and managed to tie it down to a service bollard.
 The strength of the wind was such that the owner found it impossible to get it back to his van and had to leave it tied down in a spare pitch and retrieve it later when there was a slight lull in the wind .
 I managed to get a picture of sorts of the goings on but it is a bit blurry due to being taken through a front window of the Eriba ....You can see the awning being caught and tied down in the lower left of the photo ..

Looking at the forecast for this coming weekend I can see that we could well have a replay of last weekend with another storm coming in so it could be more 'fun' on the horizon.......Maybe next week's posting could be delayed as well..

Making the most of it......

(February 2020- reposted)

With the very mixed weather that we are getting throughout this winter we have to make the most of it when we do get a short spell of good weather.

 Last Wednesday was one such good weather day.
 I had never been to Bigbury-on-sea so with the improved weather it seemed like a good day to have a short visit.

 It took about 50mins to drive over arriving just after midday. Bigbury-on-sea is a small  seaside village situated on the south coast of Devon.

There is an island just off the coast  called Burgh Island and during lowtide it is possible to walk across to the island via the sandy isthmus.

You can see in the image above the view from Bigbury-on-sea across to the island. The tracks from one of the Burgh Island hotel vehicles can clearly be seen in the sand.

We had checked the tide times and we knew that we had sufficient time to walk across and have lunch at the Pilchard inn which is near to the wonderful art deco hotel which can be seen in the image above.

The Pilchard inn was owned by the same people who owned the hotel up until last year but is now under new management. The food was very good so there has been no lowering of standards with the change of ownership.
 Interestingly the inn has been there since 1336 according to the date on the wall .

If you do get stuck on the island by the tide you can always get the 'Sea Tractor' (seen above) to get back to the mainland. Apparently it is the only one in the world and it is certainly a very unusual vehicle. 
Unfortunately currently it is out of service due to having some work being completed on it... Not a good idea to try and swim across either as I believe that there is quite a strong current to be overcome ..

The island has only three private houses, the Pilchard inn and the Burgh Island hotel so is not exactly a busy place.

 Over the years it has had a number of well known visitors including Agatha Christie who stayed at the hotel and used it for inspiration for a couple of her books.
 Another famous visitor was Noel Coward.
 I was also told that the Dave Clark Five made a film on the island and also a number of TV dramas have been filmed there as well....

We enjoyed are short visit and happily managed to walk back across the sands before the tide came back in.. 
If you are ever down on that part of the south Devon coast it could well be worth a visit if you enjoy places with not a lot going on other than a sandy beach and an island that has lots of peace and quiet...