Late summer in Cornwall

Cornwall in late summer sounds great, so we went. The trip began on Sunday 8th September with a visit to old friends Mark and Jan, near Cheltenham. We covered a lot of ground in a 90 minute catch-up and it was great to see them. Then it was on to an overnight stop at Taunton, picked from park4night. This was a cider farm at Monkton Heathfield where caravans and motorhomes are dotted around an orchard inhabited by a multitude of peacocks.

Using the experience of the Corsica trip we modified the accommodation to handle a double burner cooker fed with gas from a 907 cylinder. This has improved cooking no-end and will certainly be the way forward in anything other than heatwave conditions

(Dawn is only bending down to be in the phtoto. There's plenty of headroom really).

By the time we arrived at Bideford, the weather had turned wet. Lunch was taken inside the Landy, this time with little headroom. Then we headed to the coast at Hartland.

The lighthouse is in a stunning location, only accessible on a farm road (£2 toll) and a very short walk. To get to the farm road though, one has to navigate the Devon lanes and this is hard as they are narrow, deep and steep.

Plus all sorts of traffic came towards us, all centred on construction activity at the lighthouse. Apparently the massive refurbishment going on there (£Millions) is due to the recent purchase by a member of the Sachi family. Who it is we don't know exactly but lots of money is being spent.

We camped at a site with the biggest fields and the most space you have ever seen, at Stoke Barton. There's a link here. The views are fantastic and the coastline is stupendous.

Dinners are getting more ambitious too...

Stoke Barton Farm is owned by Hartland Abbey (or at least they share a landlord) and filming of Mallory Towers was just starting at the abbey. The entire film crew were about to establish their forward base at our campsite and overnight, massive lorries negotiated the Devon lanes, into the campsite. There, all the equipment was decanted into smaller vehicles and taken to the abbey, whilst make-up and actor rest areas were created in some other big trucks.

Meanwhile the beautiful weather gave way to a heavy sea fret and everything turned drippy wet and the wind got up. This has taught us to park facing the wind, as to do otherwise means that the "bedroom" tent fabric flaps around and keeps you awake.

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On y va

Hooray. We are off. The ferry was booked a few weeks ago and the pressure was then on to get all sorts of jobs finished on the house and Landy. Major cosmetic work was to cover the grey front doors with paint that matches the rest of the vehicle. On the engine a coolant leak had developed behind the water pump and so the P gasket and adjacent core plug were renewed. Also a cheapy head unit from those Chinese people replaced the old Sony fm radio. Now we have opened up the wonders of Car Play and all that comes with it. Finally the 9th gen iPad with WiFi became a 9th gen iPad with WiFi and ‘cellular’. This means we can use OsmAnd Maps which need no data and get their gps position off the ‘cellular’ chip in the iPad. More on this useful map in subsequent posts. We headed towards Portsmouth for a mid morning ferry via our old neighbours in S-I-V. There we had a great few hours updating each about our families and then proceeded to save the NHS, the country and the world too. I mean why no...

Burgundy

We thought that after the descent from Col du Galibier, we would be done with cols. They are brilliant to drive but hard work. The narrower the road the harder it is, especially at hairpins. These are almost always steep and so the vehicle speed and engine revs need to be correct before the turn. If it’s a right hand bend then the driving line is obviously on the right part of the corner which is always the steepest. It’s all about teamwork, especially as those bikers love the roads and like to be close to the middle. A Land Rover 110 needs a wide turning circle and so we have to look out sideways and either up above or down below to see what’s coming. After Galibier the road finally descends to the ski area of Valloire and on to Col du Telègraphe, which from the south isn’t much but those ascending from the north will feel the height gain. Then down to the Maurienne valley and we think we are done with hills. However there’s one last surprise as we turn right off the motorway route to...

Onwards

You can’t visit a classic car enthusiast without admiring their car and we got our timing right, as it was the monthly club meet on Sunday. This was held at the Hippodrome in Maisons Laffitte, so it was just up the road. The definition of ‘classic’ here is 30 years and so many of the vehicles there looked very familiar to us 😳. TR5 and TR6, MGB, RR, BMW, Maserati, of course the Jensen Interceptor that our host drives, 2CV, Caterham 7, a beautiful Austin Healy 3 litre and then this… This is identical to mine, a Fiat 850 Sport Coupé, that I owned from 1978-81. Seeing it, brought back memories of welding, brazing, stripped driveshaft splines, clutch on the M1 and many miles of amazing touring. We drove around France on a camping road trip for all of September 1978 and the following year did the Ardennes for a month too. Here’s Nige’s Jensen… Maisons Laffitte is a very nice area to the west of Paris centre. The mansion is now owned by a trust I think and is a beautiful building. All we ne...

Peelies travels

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