Up Hill and Down Dale
Today we got underway later as I took some time to fine-tune the route using Google Maps then copying the co-ordinates manually into our helpful GPS. (Plus we're on holiday, so aren't we allowed to be leisurely?!) While finishing breakfast at McDonald's (with WiFi) I read to Yvonne from my handheld computer interesting facts about our principal stops for the day - Barnstaple, Exmoor National Park, Glastonbury, and Bristol. Our first stop was the 'chemist's' (pharmacy) in Barnstaple (which used to be an important town in its own right, with its own mint, at the time the Domesday Book was written to aid William the Conqueror assess the state of his new nation; Barnstaple was one of the few 'staple' ports by which goods such as wool were exported and taxes levied).
Next we drove for several hours through Exmoor National Park - which actually seems to be mainly farmland, grazed by sheep and cattle - catching glimpses where we could through towering hedgerows of its undulating natural beauty. We spent an hour having 'garden cream teas' at the village shop and post office at Challacombe, just before leaving Devon for Somerset. Clotted cream, jam, and fresh scones - calories don't count when you're on holiday, right?
Yvonne has enjoyed an historically-based book Glastonbury so we headed next for this unusual Tor rising high above the Somerset plains. I was fooled at first, mistaking Burrowbridge Mump for the actual Glastonbury site - well, isn't one ruin atop a hill much like another?! But Glastonbury's height was really amazing and worth a few extra miles.
I had hoped to visit the oldest Methodist church in the world - John Wesley's 'New Room' in Bristol, but alas, by the time we arrived (after 6 pm) it was closed. However I was able to get a picture of the famous evangelist atop his circuit-circumnavigating steed in the courtyard. Perhaps our modern churches could be reminded by Wesley's chapel of the merits of simplicity and frugalness in church construction - saving resources for the church's mission.
Yvonne has, thankfully, been holding up very well through these first few active days of our trip. She didn't doze at all today in the car despite not having time for a nap; but, then again, perhaps it had something to do with the 14-18% grades on the hills, twisty turns, non-existent shoulders on the roads, and me pulling out Canadian-style to almost meet an oncoming vehicle head-on... I decided I'd better be a bit more careful!
[click for PHOTOS]
[click for Video of Exmoor pastoral panorama]