2016 Devon and Cornwall – The Crumbly Gappers

Winter sunset from Cabo de Gata

There is a glorious carpark beside the little village of Cabo de Gata where you can park right beside the beach. The sunsets are stunning

Montreuil sur Mer

Some of the best village ramparts in France

Bidford Riverside Carpark

What an amazing place to spend a couple of nights. Hats off to Torridge DC for doing this.

Lossiemouth looking east

We sat in Bertie and scoffed our fish and chips with this view across the mouth of the River Lossie towards Buckie and Ben Rhynnie

Cullen and Seatown

Looking back to Cullen from the viaduct with Seatown in the foreground

Wildcamping at New Aberdour Beach

An amazing wild camping location on the Banffshire Coast. Walks, beach, birds, caves what more could you want?

A corner of the Carnac Standing Stones

The Alignnements de Carnac stretch for several kilometers and contain thousands of standing stones of all sizes

Maiden Castle, Dorset

Excellent wild camp in car park directly below this impressive iron age hill fort

Marvao Castle

Marvao is stunning. It floats a thousand feet above the surrounding countryside with views in all directions

Great little aire in the heart of Burgundy

The lovely little aire was in a tiny village in the heart of Burgundy

Ricote - the oldest town in Murcia

There is a large aire on the edge of this little town. The town dates back to C9 and is well worth a visit.

The Alpuharras

View from the Miradour over a small town in the Alpuharras near Almeria.

Glencaple Pier near Dumfries

Another amazing stopover on a pier on the River Nith below Dumfries

Tomphubil Car Park

A lovely spot at the top of the hill between the Tay Valley and the Tummel Valley.

Crossing the Dart on the Kingsweir Ferry

Approaching Dartmouth on the Kingsweir Ferry.

In theory we are not far from home at Thaxted – maybe two hours drive. However the plan for today is to visit Greensted Church near Ongar which is about 20 miles in the wrong direction so it will be a rather roundabout route home today. What we are looking for is the gravestone for Eileen’s great, great grandfather’s brother. Eileen is getting really involved in digging out these relatives from the dim and distant past and she is certainly turning up

Audley End and Thaxted

Another driving day today as we want to get to Thaxted car park for tonight so that we can spend some time visiting some family history locations that Eileen is interested in. We also need to top up with LPG as the indicator is down to 1 green light. This indication turned out to be complete bunkum as it suggested the 50litre tank is almost empty when in fact it is still 75% full. We tracked down a good priced

Chasleston House and Ayno Wharf

The sun shone as we pulled away from Willow Farm and headed north around Bath and Bristol heading for the main road across the Cotswolds. The plan was to cover ground today so we have a good drive to our lunch stop at Chastleton House near Chipping Norton. This route takes us along the top of the Cotswolds through some lovely little towns such as Tetbury, Stow on The Wold and Chipping Norton. Chastleton House was a revelation. I must

Tyntesfield House and Cider with Sausages

Much less driving today! The plan is to spend most of the day at Tyntesfield House. We had booked our house tickets online last night to save time on arrival and give us a better choice of time. Several of the more popular houses operate a system like this to manage the volume of people in the house at any one time. It was quite an easy drive to to Tyntesfield with just a short stretch of M5 and then

Exmoor and the Atlantic Highway

We got away from Tintagel in good time. The car park at the Ship Inn was good value and close to all the attractions of Tintagel and I would happily use it again. We left Tintagel heading north to join up with the excitingly named “Atlantic Highway”, actually the A39 between Barnstaple and the junction with the A30 near Launceston and Newquay and not to be confused with the “Atlantic Road” in Norway! Highway is a bit of an exaggeration

Trerice and Tintagel

The highlight day of this trip as we spent it with our daughter, Alison, who had a spare day on a short visit to Cornwall from the north of Scotland. We visited Trerice Manor (NT) near Newquay and then up the coast to Tintagel to visit the castle with Alison and overnight in the car park there.

Coast to Coast and back again

An eventful day out from Humfrey’s Farm Shop. We drove across Cornwall to Chapel Porth Beach beside St Agnes Head. Returning in heavy rain through Truro our wipers gave up!!

Carlyon Beach

The Britstop at the Britannia Inn was so good that we thought we would take it easy today and stay put. The weather has turned and is grey and gloomy with the threat of rain. It actually did rain quite a bit in the night but had stopped by the time we got up. We ambled over for yet another cooked breakfast at the hotel about 9am – just as good as yesterday’s one and slightly cheaper! By the time

Lanhydrock and a Deluxe Britstop.

What a difference a night makes. It was so quiet last night – no wind, no traffic no worries! We woke at 7:30 to bright sunshine and could look down on the mist in the valley below us. We treated ourselves to a cooked breakfast at the tea room before we set off which was lovely and well worth it. So far this has to be our top Britstop and we will be back! Just half an hour’s drive

Buckland Abbey and Bodmin Moor

Another rough night! This time it was the heavy rain that woke me every hour or so and not the wind rocking the van. Mr Miller kindly allowed me to fill up with water but we found that the fitting on the tap was too big for our hose and so I had to use the folding 10litre can to ferry water from the tap to the tank which is a fiddle at the best of times but not helped

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