Day 11 Poole-Torquay-Paington-Brixham-Dartmouth

Rain rain go away……… I think NZ doesn’t want us to forget the time zone as Graeme had forgotten to turn off his cellphone and guess what time a noisy meeting reminder came thru? 3 bloody am!@#@!!! Murphys law.

We got up to wet and windy weather in Poole where we had stayed on the Quay front at the marina. Stayed in a Thistle hotel, was fine as we had had trouble finding hotels in the wet yesterday. But decided to head off since if was really too wet to walk around and off to Torquay way today.

'Ory' the GPS took us on a fantastic road- no motorway yay! Slower but much more scenic- got rather exciting when an idiot of a big truck driver up ahead decided he could fit down the narrow country lanes too. One poor motorhome coming the other way squeezed thru by the absolute skin of their teeth- felt sorry for the driver as he was looking quite traumatised as he finally got past the truck, who stopped all the traffic both ways 5 or 6 times trying to fit thru!

As we entered Devon we could see how pretty it is even in the rain- long sloping valleys and dales. Drove through Torquay and had a driving scenic tour- nice enough but nothing different. Then on to Paignton which is quite nice along the seafront, before moving on to Brixham. We had been tossing up where to stay when we were back in NZ but a lady at our last B & B suggested Dartmouth and we are so glad we kept driving to there as it is what we came halfway around the world for.

Olde Worlde charm, a small fishing harbour with coloured houses, bustling people and a steam train line and castle to boot! We decided to chance the small car ferry that we vaguely knew existed and it was a piece of cake-apart from when Graeme didnt realise the big queue was actually for the ferry and drove straight past them haha (he was very law abiding and backed back up the road to the back of the queue)! The car ferry saved us 35 mins driving around the coast road.

We were looking out for an old, rambling hotel like we had in Eastbourne and Arundel- these are our favourite. Graeme spied the one and only right in the middle of the seafront, so I went in and managed to negotiate a 90 pound price drop for a huge room overlooking the harbour. In fact we quickly decided we would stay 2 nights as there is heaps to do and we were keen to stop 2 nights somewhere we liked.

Went out for a walk around the harbour front and we walking back into the town when a man walking the other way stopped and asked if we wanted him to take a photo of us as we looked like tourists- the short story – he is a kiwi from Wellington who lives here now!! We got talking and Steve is a real character. He works at the old castle and said he would have taken us touring the area except he is flying back to NZ tomorrow as his mother died last night. He is a character, full of energy and is a historian buff. Very nice guy who may or may not turn up tonight at our hotel for a drink!

Funny how you can start the day in one place and end up somewhere you would never imagine- life is so ordered it is nice to be leaving things to chance for a change! Nice on holiday anyway.

No spaz shot today but thought I would add a photo especially for Dad- showing him how you can take interesting photos of birds that arent grey!! The seagulls here are huge- way way bigger than at home!