Published> September 19th 2025年9月19日

👉 Hello there! This week I write one last post about the South West of England. Not Cornwall, where all the tourists go, but the quieter counties of Somerset and Devon. After all, if you look at the header at the top of the page you will see that I am sticking to the original description of this blog : ……“life in Germany as an expat, with excursions to Japan and the UK….”

I thought I’d add a little map. It’s all happening around that red pin.

👉 The coast is very steep here, but there is a lovely walk down from a place called Watersmeet (where two rivers do actually meet) to Lynmouth, a harbour town etched out between the hills and the sea. The river looks idyllic, but has been very violent in the past…..notably in 1952 when much of the town was destroyed in a flood.

The teahouse at Watersmeet. Expect china teacups here.

The path is easy terrain, and we met many a local walking the dog…..all gave us a friendly greeting…..☺️

The sun peeps its way into the steep wooded valley…..

….a mini waterfall…..

Moss-covered trees line the route….

Now and then a bridge offers a crossing point to the other side…..

“London Pride” adorns the banks……

The river at times quiet, at times more hurried….

A bottle marks the site of an old mineral water works……

You eventually reach Lynmouth at the sea…a sleepy place with cafés, a fudge shop (so sweet!) and a pier. There is also a steep funicular railway up to Lynton village at the top of the hill.

View along the coast from the pier…

…….down in the harbour in the early afternoon….

But what is less well-known is the remarkable feature just over the next hill – the Valley of the Rocks. A valley plunges down to meet the sea, leaving a skyline of magnificent rocks in its wake….

The base of the valley is flat, and it is here that a quintessential English scene unfolds…..a cricket match….

We climbed up high above, scrambling between bracken fronds and briars, with that sweet smell of rabbit droppings 🐇everywhere…..

….to where a vast vista opens up…..with the land plunging down to the sea….scary!

Good grief. my legs turned to water…..I’m not good at heights, and cling to the rocks in desperation….

I don’t know how they got this bench up here, but you wouldn’t be forgiven to expect the credits of a film to start scrolling over the screen at this point………..Over the horizon lie Cork and Clonakilty in the south of Ireland.

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👉 Time to leave the quiet South West and head for London. We stop at Matt & Sarah’s place in Bristol to return the Ordnance Survey maps, and are soon on the M4. The lashing rain and frantic windscreen wipers soon forced up to stop. And what better time than to take a detour to mysterious Avebury, a World Heritage site similar to Stonehenge. Vast rocks placed in three concentric circles are witness to an ancient civilization…..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury

All sorts of strange sights abound here. Burial mounds, a conical hill, and energy lines that connect up to Stonehenge. There seems to be a vibe in the background. People walk up to the rocks and hug them…

The chalk of the Wiltshire Downs reveals itself…..

👉 Well, thank you for following this blog so far. Next week we find ourselves in London and West Sussex …….

さて、これまでこのブログをご覧いただきありがとうございました。来週はロンドンとウェスト・サセックスに行きます……。

See you….Matane….👋

nigelwruddockgmail.com

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