Morse

Morse
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Wednesday, 7 November 2018

England Autumn Dispatch - Tuesday, 6th November, 2018



When I left you last we were in Falmouth, Cornwall, not enjoying our AirBNB. We were pleased to leave on Sunday morning & drive to Dartmouth, Devon. Our first stop was Penzance, where the Saundrys lived for many years & some still do. However, the newsagent that they ran has been taken over by W H Smith, much to my disappointment.


This plaque is in Market Jew Street, Penzance, and there are three Warren’s bakeries all with .5km of each other.

We stopped also at a tiny town called Cripplesease, where our Daylesford friends, Bill & Sue Longley, lived & sold their pottery for some years before coming to Australia. The town is at the top of a hill, which might explain its politically incorrect name!

We stopped for a hot drink & iced gingerbread cake at Kernow Mill in Saltash, then caught the ferry at Torpoint, which took us to Plymouth and saved us an hour’s driving for under $3.

Eventually we arrived at Dartmouth to the best accommodation of our trip. Not through AirBNB, but Trip Advisor. We have 4 rooms, 2 skylights, a brilliant shower & plenty of power points, storage space & lighting. Our hostess, Angela, lived in Australia for 20 years, and it shows in the bathroom. Bliss!


View from our lounge overlooking Dartmouth.

Of course we were too late in the season to take the ferry to Greenway, Agatha Christie’s house & it appeared the steam train/boat combination was also on holidays.

We walked in the rain to find somewhere to eat on our first night & ended up at The Windjammer Inn, a rather quaint little spot with an excellent hostess, some crab cakes & seafood chowder. I was taken with the vases of fresh flowers.


Wes wasn’t feeling too well yesterday, so we opted for a quiet day in comfortable surroundings. We had witnessed the aftermath of an awful accident on our way to Dartmouth, where one car had jack-knifed & ended up on its side in the middle of the road. This added 45 minutes to our journey, which meant too much driving I suspect. The English drivers are very responsible, once they realised what had happened, one lane moved to the extreme left & the other to the extreme right, thus allowing police, ambulance, fire brigade etc a clear, safe path through.

Our alarm woke us at 3am today, to get ready to watch the Melbourne Cup. Sadly we couldn’t connect our laptop to the TV, but had a perfect view via racing.com. It was an amazing win by Cross Counter flying past Marmelo & A Prince of Arran just before the line. We had picked horses 2 & 3 in our quinella & put $5 E/W on A Prince of Arran, so weren’t out of pocket. Facebook was immediately full of all those who had picked the winner happily skiting about their success. In a field of 24, it is always tough to get it right & Cross Counter was a good bet at $12 win.

We went back to bed after 4.15am & tried to get some more sleep or at least rest! We went for a walk into Dartmouth city centre & harbour. Our accommodation is in a 6ft wide road, but fortunately has a garage with room for our car. We then climbed 8 steps to the gate & a further 24 steps to our unit, which is attached to the main home, hence our lovely views.

Wild mushroom omelette at the French bakery & café

I managed to get my nails done at the end of our street at lunchtime and afterwards we headed off to visit a few places that were on our agenda. First stop was Greenway, Agatha Christie’s home, and to get there we had to catch the Higher Ferry, rather than the Lower Ferry. This was a very expensive 5 minutes, costing about $10, but fun. We drove through some beautiful countryside & very narrow lanes to Greenway, which is closed, and were unable to get close enough to get a photo. We did appreciate that it is in a lovely spot.


Greenway House from the National Trust’s photos

Next stop was Torquay, for a walk along the beach in Agatha’s footsteps. We hated Torquay instantly, and the heavy rain made it impossible to walk anywhere, let alone the beach, so we abandoned that plan & drove to Ashburton, where Sherlock Holmes allegedly stayed during The Hound of the Baskervilles. There is a pub which has named itself after the book, there are dark & threatening moors, very suitable to the book, but our main impression after a quick walk around, was of an affluent town, with lots of lovely shops & very little sign of unemployment.

Finally, we drove back here to Dartmouth & went in search of an early dinner. We liked the look of the Seven Stars, Darmouth’s oldest pub, and were warmly greeted by the young landlord. Dinner was grilled gammon & chips for Wes & scampi & chips for me. We agreed this was easily our best pub meals of the trip.


Wes enjoying the pub!



Pub open fireplace

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