Exmoor and Abingdon

Finally we have a campsite which has 3G! We don't realise how good our communications are in Australia. One of the most common sights here is people walking down the road waving their mobiles about in some sort of Druidic rite to catch their lost connection!

From New Forest we hit the road Westward. Linda's maternal line comes from Somerset, and more specifically a little town called South Petherton. A beautiful little town that's built almost entirely out of the same stone - 'Hamstone' which is mined just outside the town.

We managed to get hold of a little history booklet on the town from the pub and went on one of the walks. Here is a photo of South Petherton Central...

We met Wally Monkton's mate at the Brewer's Arms and learned how good draught cider can be. Also how bad the Scrumpy always is. They had an amazing tv screen nearly as big as the back wall and I watched Mark Webber get beat.

 

From here we continued on our cider way to Exmoor, via our favourite B road. The English don't seem to like  travelling on their smaller roads much, or maybe it's because EVERYONE uses their GPS. The A roads are bumper to bumper traffic queues, even the motorways. We seem to make much better times on the B roads, and get to actually see the countryside rather than the screening shrubs.

Exmoor is pretty amazing because even tho it's on the Irish Sea, and only a couple of miles from the Bristol Channel, it is really high up and it's main river the Exe actually drains into the English Channel at Exmouth. 

We had a pretty scary drive in to the camp ground. The gradient was 25% ...  Luckily we'd taken the shortcut and survived to actually use the proper road at a later date. We love Google Maps on iPhone, but you gotta be careful!

The campsite was gorgeous however and was right by the fast flowing mill stream with a bunch of weird Indian Runner ducks to point the way for Vasco Pyjama's boat. We will always regret not getting the photos of this.

Biggest discovery was the town of Dunster (we call it Dumpster) near Minehead. The Baron cleared out some years ago and left the whole town to the national trust. One of the oldest towns in the country. It had this amazing Yarn Market built in the middle of the street which dated back to the middle ages.

The town was built around an amazing castle on the hill.

 

and there were lots of pretty walks...

We did lots of other stuff too, but we have to move on, because it was important that we get to Glastonbury to pick up our son Oliver. We can prove we were there!

 

We had a great couple of days around Abingdon, near Oxford. We went to the The Carswell...

The Carswell was the original well spring for the town of Abingdon, which claims to be the oldest town in England.

Linda wants White Horsey pictures, so here we go. Abingdon is at the head of the Vale of the White Horse.

 

Oliver is now in Malaga having a well earned break on the beach sipping? Mojitos and we've come on up to Wales via Shrewsbury and Much Wenlock. More on that later, as we've got an early start in the morning and some photo editing yet to do.  Hope everyone's keeping well. We're having a great time. Touch base again soon.