Newquay and Exeter

Again, we were greeted by lovely Spring weather as we wandered over to the north coast around Newquay, renowned as the surfing capital of the UK. After Australian surf beaches, we were not expecting much, but we couldn’t help but be impressed with the spectacular coastline. At Newquay itself, there are nine beaches separated by jagged headlands. Fistral Beach apparently has the most famous beach break when the Atlantic is in the right mood producing perfect, powerful, hollow waves.

We continued up the spectacular coast road to Padstow, then crossed over to the south coast, planning on having lunch in Looe, a neat little fishing port where Mum and Dad had once stayed. Unfortunately it was shrouded in sea fog so we repaired to a local café for a gargantuan serving of fish and chips. We realised why the seagulls around here were so enormous.

Heading east, we left Cornwall crossing over the Tamar at Saltash just outside Plymouth. We vowed to return next year as, despite our best efforts in the past week, there remained plenty of places still to visit. Whilst Dad settled in for his post prandial, Ingrid and I ventured into Exeter. It’s an interesting city with the High Street displaying a patchwork of exquisite old architecture sitting cheek by jowl with some very ordinary examples of post war reconstruction and modern day commercial reality. Down on the town quays on the River Exe, there is a sympathetic development of the old solid stone warehouses, where we repaired for our habitual afternoon aperitivo.

The cathedral, dating back to the 1400’s is notable for its astronomical clock, the longest uninterrupted vaulted ceiling in England and its misericords. For us, it was notable for two things – one, it was open and two, it was simply magnificent. I was disappointed to realise, that had we been there on a Tuesday afternoon, there was a guided tour through rooves of the cathedral.

That evening, we had a pleasant dinner at our hotel which was only slightly marred by the presence in the dining room of a youth wearing a cap, backwards and playing with his smartphone. This elicited an audible response from one of our number. Ingrid could not leave Devon without trying one of their eponymous cream teas. So next morning we ventured into the centre of Exeter and came upon a café on the cathedral square. It was extremely pleasant sitting in the glorious early Spring sunshine, where we struck up an amusing conversation with some locals as we devoured our cream teas.

  

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