Week Two: Camping!

I may have mentioned (banged on about) the fact that we’d bought a bell tent to camp in.  It was every bit as fabulous as we’d hoped.  It kept us dry, warm and was actually a little bit glam once we’d decked the insides out with some bunting, rugs and blankets.

We camped at the Camping and Caravanning Club site in Slapton, south Devon, which was great.  Really flat (not a given in south Devon, trust me) and the people who ran it were very nice.  The kids opposite could have done with some discipline and there could have been some more showers as I hate queuing (what do women do in there??!!) but those are minor quibbles.

Slapton itself is a very quaint little village, which we found out the hard way, coming through after dark on the tiny, windy lanes.  No joke, this is the ‘passing place’, where the car going in one direction can pull in to let the car going in the opposite direction past…  I could barely fit my bicycle in there!  Good job then that we had the tiniest car I’ve ever seen, we saw Range Rovers parked up in the lanes but I can only assume they were parachuted in.

We had an amazing Sunday lunch at The Tower Inn thanks to a recommendation from my friend Lia who’s a bit of a camping trail-blazer amongst my friends and recommended Slapton to me, stating that the Tower Inn was her ‘favourite pub’.  If you knew Lia you’d know that’s some recommendation.

We went for a bit of a nature walk around ley, basically an expanse of fresh water, separated form the sea by a thin stretch of land.  We saw some deserted buildings which I poked about in a bit, some beautiful butterflies and generally congratulated ourselves on camping in a very good spot,

We then hit the beach where Sam swam, I snoozed and the sun shone.  Perfecto.

We indulged in a few other activities while we were there, including walking up the coast to Torcross and seeing the Shermann tank there to commemorate the lives lost in one of the D-Day landings run thoughs called Operation Tiger.  Whilst practising landing on the beach the convoy was attacked by U-boats and a numer of the tanks sank, taking their crews with them.  This tank was rescued from the sea to act as monument.

We also went for a sit on the lovely beach at Blackpool Sands, which is a private beach nearby.  This does mean they charge you £6 to go in though.  Hmm…not sure about that to be honest but it was lovely and we did pick up a boules set, a game at which I excel apparently, and a mini-Jenga set, which I do not suck at as badly as I’d thought I would.

The weather wasn’t all good unfortunately so we took a trip to Dartmouth and had a wander round, explored the castle (lots of guns) and had a cream tea.  Well, when in Rome after all.

Mostly though it was blissfully relaxing, we explored the coast, hit up some tourist sites and retired to the tent every night for dinner.  We even managed a thai green curry on the trusty trangia.  No worries though for those of you aware of my issues with co-ordination, I sat on the bed very far away whilst Sam dealt with the flames and cooking.

I’m back at work now and it all seems like a lovely dream…  We came back to a very busy but fun weekend of skateboarding competitions, birthday parties and lazy Sunday lunches and are now in work mode again.  Bah.

Off to the Isla d’Blanca this arvo though so that’s some consolation!