Exeter

We were allowed to sleep in today as there was nowhere that we urgently needed to be. When we woke up Andrew and Maria helped us organize what we were going to do on our daytrip around Exeter. After some more time relaxing and organizing transport for our trip, we had lunch and I had my first taste of Vegemite since leaving Australia. Oh how I’ve missed it!

Then it was saying goodbye to Cheza and off in the car to head towards Dartmoor. Some of the Laughton side of the family may have seen, or heard, the video of Anthony and Andrew driving through the snow in Dartmoor last winter. The weather was quite different today, with sun shining across the British moors despite it still being cold. Though it was a balmy 12 degrees later in the day; positively boiling!

Next we headed off to the beaches of Teignmouth, where band The Muse grew up. It was awesome to see shining sun and clear, blue seaside, although the brown sand was a bit different to home. It is quite a lovely bit of the south coast; the pier was closed but we could see the old fashioned carnival-type attractions at the end. We had hot chocolates at the Beachcomber café before walking along the brown and pebbled shoreline back to the car.

We had a relaxing time back at the house. It was nice to just be able to sit and rest rather than spending an entire day sightseeing. Then it was off into the town of Exeter tonight where Andrew and Maria showed us the old Cathedral, though we spotted quite a few other churches on the way too! We had British ale at the Well House Tavern (Justine had a Tawny Owl and myself a Yellow Hammer) before heading off for some Italian for dinner. I tried to have a chicken parmigiana type meal, but it just wasn’t the same as the Tarwin Lower pub.

After dinner we hurried back out of the cold for a quiet night in, though we did make Andrew and Maria try some of the Rocket Fuel from the schnapps museum. What a good and entertaining buy that was!