Devon, Denbies and Dinosaurs

What I Did On My Holidays

by

Joanne Moore (aged 40¼)

Devon

On my holidays this year I went away to Devon with my Dad and Thomas. We stayed in a cottage in Lynmouth, on the north coast of the county. Lynmouth is a pretty village that hit the headlines in August 1952 when a flash flood destroyed many of the buildings and claimed 34 lives. Rebuilt now, of course, it is a busy tourist spot during the day, but is peaceful in the evenings when the day trippers disappear.

Our cottage was on the bank of the West Lyn river - it's hard to imagine now that a hydro-electric power station used to stand between the cottage and the river's edge...

Our cottage was the middle of the three tall cottages, just above the bridge, in the centre of the picture.

We had good weather for most of the week (just a couple of days of rain). The views from Lynmouth harbour are stunning.

Out of shot, to the left, is Wales...

Lynmouth is linked to its clifftop sister village, Lynton, by a Victorian water-powered cliff railway - way ahead of its time with its green credentials!

The Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway


Obligatory pretty sunset picture...


Lynmouth by night

Lynton can also be reached via a zig-zag path up the cliff. I decided to take the train up and walk down. However, there was a huge queue for the train and I thought "How hard can it be?". It was very hard. One steep zig-zag after another! I almost made it to the top, but when I was presented with a 'down' fork I had to take it, convincing myself that a circular route made much more sense than just getting to the top and coming back again. I stopped frequently to take pictures - it was so pretty (and I was so exhausted!). I rewarded myself back at the bottom with a proper Devon cream tea - I deserved it!

It's steeper than it looks - honest!

The just-too-tempting 'down' option.

On one of the rainy days we wandered over to Glen Lyn Gorge, and took a walk up the river. My parents visited here on their honeymoon, 46 years ago (practically to the day).

Thomas (reluctantly) and Dad. We have pictures of Mum and Dad in this very spot in 1963!

Just to maintain the illusion of an active holiday (it wasn't...), we spent our last afternoon on the village putting green.

Denbies

We decided to have a day trip out to see the Lego house being built by James May at Denbies Vineyard near Dorking. It turned out to be quite a way away, and Thomas wasn't up for the trek, so we took the tour and just enjoyed the views.

Overlooking part of the vineyard to Dorking

The Lego house, under construction

Dinosaurs

On bank holiday Monday we had tickets to see the Walking With Dinosaurs arena show at Wembley. It was the first time I'd come close to the new stadium...

I thought the show was fun. The dinosaurs were big and as realistic as you could hope for, though the over-dramatic music was a bit much. It's hard to judge the scale of these things when you're in an arena, but there was a (real) man on stage for the whole show, so you could tell just how big and impressive the dinosaurs were. I, unlike most other people, followed the instructions for 'no flash photography', so my pictures aren't great, but they give you an idea...

Stegosaurus (probably). The 'rocks' in the middle are about twice the height of a man, to give you an idea of scale...

The Tyrannosaurus Rex was the finale (naturally). The 'mechanics' that made them walk, crudely disguised as rocks, were soon forgotten because the rest of the movements were so well done. See the teeny tiny man? Out of shot is a 'baby' T-Rex, which provided a comedy element that was possibly not quite historically accurate...

So, that was what I did on my holidays. (I'm not mentioning the flu...)