Our new pitch...

We woke up on Monday morning to lots of rain.....it continued most of the time that we were packing up our pitch at Acorn Farm.
The journey down here to Tavistock was heavy rain the whole way too.... 

Torrential rain when travelling on Devon's roads also means lots of mud - 
When we arrived here at the Tavistock C&CC site Eva the Eriba was covered in the stuff...
Luckily for us after the one hour journey the rain stopped and the sun came out...I even managed to give Eva a bit of a clean up and now she is back to her bright shiny gleaming self again.

When I booked this pitch I had asked for a quiet area of the site and that is exactly what we have.....To be honest, from our perspective I think we have the very best pitch on the site, we are tucked away in a top corner with no pitches in front of us and we are set aside from the main area making it perfect for us.....

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week the weather improved and has been bright...sunny and warm.....
Today..? Well today we have had strong winds and back to torrential rain again....but the forecast for the weekend and the early part of next week is promising to be back to good weather.....This is good news as my Daughter and family are coming down to spend a couple of nights on site with us........

On the cycling front......one of the cycling climbs listed in Simon Warrens book '100 Greatest Cycling Climbs' passes right outside the campsite. 
This is Rundlestone/Pork Hill graded in Simon's book as a 7/10. The climb is 8950m in length with a height gain of 346m and has an approx climb time of 28mins.

 I am here for a month so hopefully at some point I will have an attempt at it...
It is one of the climbs that has been used on the West country stage of The Tour of Britain in the past....

Our new pitch... [including washing :-) ]

Setting Off Again.....

Tomorrow we will be setting off again....
We are not going too far, only about an hour down the road. Our destination this time is the C&CC site at Tavistock.....

Anne used to live in Tavistock some years ago before we met and one of her sons still lives close by.... 
The site is right on the edge of the moor so we are hoping to get out on some good Dartmoor walks and the cycling can be pretty good too if you like the stiff climbs....

Yesterday the weather was pretty stunning with almost a clear sky and bright sunshine... Today it is dull and overcast with odd spells of drizzle... What tomorrow holds I don't know although the forecast is not looking too good....

We packed up the awning last night just to be on the safe side as we didn't want to pack it up in damp weather so at least that is one of our major tasks all done and dusted.....

The picture below has absolutely nothing to do with us moving on..... 
I took the image the other day when we were in Great Torrington and I rather liked the contrast between the natural softness of the plants in the basket and the hardness of the rusting swing gate......

I will post again once we have settled in on our new pitch........

Nothing to do with moving on :-)

More Walking.....

Due to the very strong winds that we have been suffering over the past few days, riding my bike has not really been an option....
Still... with a book of walks to work through we have had plenty to occupy our time....
There really are some tremendous walks in the area and Anne and I are determined to make the most of them.

Dolton is a nice village of about 900 inhabitants one of which is a Rolling Stone....
Charlie Watts the drummer with the Stones has a home here...
He and his wife run their Arabian Stud farm here and he can often be seen driving along the Devon counry lanes around the village when he is not on tour ......

Heading off on another walk....

Most of  the farmers in the area appear to be very friendly......
Mind you on one of our recent walks we came across the farm gate below.....
Judging by the notices pinned to the gate this farmer was not of the friendly type...

Not all the farmers are friendly..

 On the same walk we found this very attractive duck pond in the grounds of a large estate...the footpath went right through the grounds but at some distance from the main house...
I thought that the small boat really made the scene complete and was worthy of a photograph..

Attractive duck pond...

 On the way back into the village at the end of this walk we saw this garage at the side of a cottage.....
Judging by the plant growth working it's way up the garage doors they haven't been opened in sometime.... 
It makes me wonder whether there is some nice classic vehicle stored inside just waiting to be 'discovered'.....!

This garage isn't used very often.

That's another month gone..!

So it's the last day of July and that means we have been on this trip for four months.....
It doesn't seem possible...the time just seems to have flown by.

None of the gilt of this adventure has worn off..both Anne and I are enjoying it just as much as the day we set off, even though at the moment we have had to restrict the distance we actually travel....

The weather looks like it has improved slightly since my last post and today was a very sunny one....I made the most of it by getting out for a ride.
Cycling in North Devon can be a bit tough as the roads seem to go constantly up and down and some of the gradients are a real challenge, that coupled with the very narrow roads and the large trucks that use the narrowest of lanes means you do need to have your wits about you as well as being reasonably fit...

Anne and I are still working through the walks in the book that we were given as well as getting out and visiting some of the local towns.

We now have just over another week here and we aim to make the most of this lovely area....

On a local walk....Another one ticked off.

Our pitch at Acorn Farm.

A view of Great Torrington our nearest town

Another view of Great Torrington

Back to bad weather and winds....

It is a week now since we arrived in Dolton and the weather has been terrible for this time of year..... Last time we were in Devon we had bad weather and strong winds and that is what we are experiencing again.....

After the nice weather that we had during our stay at the Devizes site this weather is a bit of a let down.....

However..... it hasn't stopped us managing to get out for some walks.

Jen the campsite warden, gave us a booklet produced by the local parish council of ten walks of varying distances starting from the village square. It really is a superbly produced little booklet and we have started to work our way through the different walks.

Here are a couple of shots of local buildings taken on today's walk.....

St Edmunds Church Dolton (Note the unusual red tower)

Thatched cottage in the village of Dowland

Back in Devon.

Well our change of location this time finds us back in Devon....
As I mentioned in a previous post we want to be close to Anne's mother due to her current health problems....

We are now pitched up at the Acorn Farm campsite in the village of Dolton near Winkleigh in North Devon....

The entrance to our new site.

View of the pitches at Acorn Farm.

 The site is only 6 miles from the village of Petrockstowe where Anne's mother lives, so it is ideally situated for us... 
Mind you the route that you have to take to get there is along some pretty narrow lanes.... 
I wouldn't want to meet anything coming the other way if I was on my bike let alone in the car, however when we went over for a visit yesterday we met another car coming the other way and I seemed to be reversing for ages before the lane became wide enough to allow us to pass each other.....

Today the site had a very unusual 'caravan trailer' delivered...
Manufactured locally it is called a 'Barrel Top Wagon' and it has been sited here so that people can view it and possibly rent a week in it or even buy one...

Barrel Top Wagon arriving....

Reversing the wagon onto a hard standing pitch

In some ways it is similar to a traditional Gypsy style caravan, although the interior is fitted out very nicely to appeal to the current popular 'glamping' craze....

I must admit it reminds me of a large bathing machine as used by Queen Victoria...although perhaps I shouldn't say that......

Wagon all set-up next to the wardens campervan..

The campsite warden here is a retired lady by the name of Jen and she has been travelling around in her campervan for the past nine years....
She appears to be a real wealth of 'fulltiming' information and I have already gleaned a lot of good advice from her. 
I am looking forward to more chats with her about all things of interest to a grey nomad......

Don't camp under trees.......

We move on again this morning.....
The route has been chosen.... items packed away....awning taken down...vehicle tank filled with fuel and a picnic lunch prepared for a stop along the way.....

We really are sorry that our time here is up, but as I said in my last post we will be coming back here again.

Where will we pop up next..? Just keep checking out this blog to find out.

A couple of days ago this happened to the caravan on our next door pitch.......

Branch just split from tree but luckily missed the van by inches

I was just sitting outside in front of my awning reading the paper when I heard this splitting sound.....
I looked up and saw a branch on a tree next to our neighbours caravan just break away from it's main branch and slowly fall to the ground.....

It missed the next door caravan by inches...luckily the owner had only just taken his awning down as he was leaving the following day or that would have been crushed under the weight of the branch....

Unfortunately in the picture the branch seems to look smaller than it actually was....but believe me it was a substantial lump of wood......

The tree looks healthy and there was no sign or warning that a large side branch was going to split away from the tree......Also there was no wind to speak of at the time....

The site managers acted quickly and chopped a large section of the branch up and removed it from the area.....first thing the next morning tree surgeons arrived and went around the entire site checking all the trees......

Anne has always laughed at me and my reluctance to camp too close to trees...perhaps now she will be as cautious as me.