Travel

The Gold Coast of Devon on the first weekend of July

The Moonraker 07/04/2016 254 Views

FacebookTwitterLinkedinPinterest

A view across to Woolacombe and Morte Point from Woolacombe Down

Just like most Fri­days over the last cou­ple of months, after fin­ish­ing up in the office in the after­noon it was time to pack up the van and hit the A303 for anoth­er trip to North Devon to hope­ful­ly enjoy a bit of surf­ing with friends. Although all week the fore­casts had been indi­cat­ing very lit­tle in the way of good surf with strong onshore winds, it was­n’t until late in the week that there was a hint of those winds dying down for Sun­day, worth tak­ing a punt. Besides, what would I do at home?!

The area north of the Riv­er Taw has been like a sec­ond home for the last few years. Saun­ton Sands was the first place I tried to surf and even now, after surf trips to Fuerteven­tu­ra and Por­tu­gal, still my favourite spot when the con­di­tions are right, although dur­ing the sum­mer week­ends, very busy. For­tu­nate­ly, hav­ing vis­it­ed a fair few times now, the area still has some nice sur­pris­es and there are so many ways to get away from the crowds in summer.

On this occa­sion I was meet­ing up with friends who also have a T4, anoth­er 1.9td 800 Spe­cial which, accord­ing to the chas­sis num­ber, rolled off the fac­to­ry line in Poland just a hun­dred or so after mine. The plan was to meet up at the camp­site in time to watch Wales vs Bel­gium in the Euro 2016 Quar­ter-final, although this did­n’t quite go to plan. Ear­li­er in the day I picked up a fuel fil­ter from my local car shop and as I just about had time before head­ing off I attempt­ed to fit it, only to find it would not go into the des­ig­nat­ed hole. With time run­ning out I had to put the old one back in. Prob­lem is, half way down the A303 the van start­ed to lose pow­er, I could bare­ly get above 50mph but it was­n’t dif­fi­cult to realise the prob­lem was with the fuel fil­ter. Thank­ful­ly Hal­fords in Taunton was still open and they had the cor­rect fil­ter in stock. A quick fit­ting in the car park and I was on the road again.

I was now on the M5 but real­is­ing I was­n’t going to make it for kick-off so was ready to lis­ten via BBC Sport App on my iPhone. On arriv­ing at Tiver­ton I came up against the next delay. The A361 was closed for resur­fac­ing, forc­ing me on a diver­sion through the mid­dle of Devon. Great scenery but not what I had hoped for. It also did­n’t help the BBC Sport App as I had hard­ly any sig­nal until South Molten.

Final­ly, 4 hours 10 min­utes from home (nor­mal­ly around 2 hours 40 mins), I was arriv­ing at Easewell Farm camp­site, near Morte­hoe. As camp­sites go, hav­ing tried most in the area, I would have to rec­om­mend it here. Despite the fact I nev­er use any of their facil­i­ties, and they have a lot, the site itself is great. I have always stayed in ‘E’ field which has a lot of lev­el areas despite it being real­ly hilly, the views are great from the high­er areas. My van has two leisure bat­ter­ies so for a week­end’s stay I do not need an elec­tric hook-up. The only prob­lem is from July and through­out the sum­mer, the prices do go up considerably.

My friends, Matthias and Sam had only just arrived too, caught up in the same diver­sion I had encoun­tered. We were now into the sec­ond half of the foot­ball, Matthias was just rig­ging up the lap­top to watch the remain­der on screen with a nice cold beer, what a great game it was, well done Wales on that one.

Despite us find­ing a fair­ly shel­tered part of the camp­site, the wind was blow­ing a hoo­ley on the Fri­day night, too strong to sit out­side on this occa­sion. Know­ing the wind was going to can­cel any chance of some good surf in the morn­ing, a few drinks were on the cards, no prob­lem get­ting to sleep on this occasion.

Wak­ing up on Sat­ur­day was a lit­tle dis­ori­en­tat­ing. Every now and again, as on this occa­sion, I wake up in the van and won­der where the hell I am and tak­ing a few sec­onds to realise what’s going on. Then, when my alco­hol fogged mind catch­es up, it feels great to know I’m stay­ing away.

There still looked liked some hope for surf on Sun­day but for now, the wind was still fair­ly strong. It had dropped off a bit from the day before but we’d decid­ed it would be a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to keep active and get in a good walk. At first, the plan was to walk to Woola­combe and to the top of Pot­ter’s Hill but that turned out to just be part of it. Easewell Far­m’s loca­tion is just on the north­ern edge of the west fac­ing Atlantic coast and right next to it is Morte Point which we’ve known from pre­vi­ous vis­its is a great place to walk and see the seals. Despite being sum­mer and with the sun actu­al­ly shin­ing, the wind was bit­ing so it was a lit­tle dif­fi­cult to know what to wear, for­tu­nate­ly a T‑shirt, shorts and a hoody was suf­fi­cient. And of course, appro­pri­ate footwear, instead I opt­ed for my Vans.

The views as you walk around Morte Point are real­ly some­thing else, since my first vis­it to this area I have nev­er been dis­ap­point­ed from what can be seen. On approach­ing the coast we released from the white hors­es out afar and the lumpy mess on the coast­line that we were right not to take the surf­boards out. Fol­low­ing the coast­path around the point even­tu­al­ly meets the road between Mor­ti­hoe and Woola­combe, it’s then just a short walk down into the vil­lage of Woola­combe. Time to get some­thing for lunch and an ice cream before mov­ing on to Pot­ter’s Hill. Out of the wind, the sun was real­ly warm, the whole coast­line just lights up on a sun­ny day, hence being named the Gold Coast.

Pot­ter’s Hill is just south of Woola­combe, it’s only a short walk up from the busy crowds of Woola­combe and when you arrive you feel like you’re in a dif­fer­ent place alto­geth­er, the views are astound­ing and on this occa­sion we were the only peo­ple there. Once we had tak­en in the views and placed our own stones on the rock pile, the sug­ges­tion came of walk­ing on towards Puts­bor­ough, it was still ear­ly after­noon and the only oth­er plan we had for the day was to stop off at the pub on the way back to watch the Germany/Italy game in the evening.

The walk up across Woola­combe Down con­tin­ues to astound, with great views out and beyond the head­land between Puts­bor­ough and Croyde. The sky was still very blue and the wind was real­ly blow­ing at over 500 ft above sea-lev­el. We stopped off to watch the launch of a handglid­er launch which was good to see, rather than the usu­al run­ning down a hill and tak­ing to the air, it had to be held down by three oth­ers, then when released it just took a ver­ti­cal climb towards the sky. It was inter­est­ing speak­ing to those who had launched the glid­er, as with any sport there are so many things to learn, some of what we were told about it I’m sure only scraped the sur­face. Good that they’re hav­ing fun, but that’s not a sport for me, I pre­fer to be on the ground, or water.

Mov­ing on, we even­tu­al­ly dropped down the hills and onto Puts­bor­ough Sands, it was near­ly high tide and the beach was quite busy. Although we could­n’t be sure what had hap­pened, we had the unfor­tu­nate sight of medics see­ing to an indi­vid­ual on the beach as we arrived, pos­si­bly a surfer, lat­er to be tak­en by the HM Coast­guard helicopter.

At this point, we were all ready for a cof­fee, the beach shop at Puts­bourough gave us a chance to get out of the wind and begin to feel a lit­tle nor­mal again. Sat drink­ing a cof­fee, there were a few surfers who had no doubt realised or adhered to Eye­bal­l’s advice that Puts­bourough could be the best spot for the day. Pos­si­bly true, as by this point the waves had began to form more in the way of lines rather than the lumpy mess we had seen ear­li­er. We were still hap­py with our choice not to go in today though, the fight against the ocean would have just wrecked us for the next day.

Walk­ing back to Woola­combe via the beach was a great deal eas­i­er than over Woola­combe Down. Sam’s idea for a beach clean result­ed in quite a col­lec­tion of plas­tic and this was only a small part of what was there, sad to think what that will all do to marine life.

Once in Woola­combe it was time to eat again, Fish and Chips of course, the sta­ple diet of any week­ender at the sea­side. Tim­ing could­n’t have been bet­ter, we arrived just ahead of a huge group of lads, prob­a­bly down here on a stag do. Tim­ing con­tin­ued to work to our favour when we arrived at Cap­tain Jacks to watch the foot­ball, there was nobody there when we arrived so we got a table right in front of the large screen, moments lat­er the place was full. Time then to relax with what was planned to be a cou­ple of pints but thanks to extra time and penal­ties we made it to our third. Hav­ing walked enough for one day, we got a taxi back to the camp­site, was only £5.80, so well worth it. Tim­ing for this was spot on too, we walked out the pub and the taxi was parked up outside.

It was now get­ting late, so con­sid­er­ing we would be surf­ing the next morn­ing when the winds were fore­cast to be at their light­est, we had a cup of tea and called it a night. The wind had already died down so things were look­ing hope­ful in the morning.

Sun­day morn­ing, first thing I do is check the web­cams on the Mag­ic Sea­weed App, result! The sea had cleared up overnight and the wind had dropped to almost noth­ing. After pack­ing up the vans, which was fair­ly quick on this occa­sion as it was too windy to put much out­side, we took off in the vans. We had not yet decid­ed where we were going to surf today, Saun­ton would be busy, as would be Woola­combe, we know of a few oth­er spots with­out the crowds but our jour­ney did­n’t actu­al­ly last too long. Just as we dropped down from Mor­ti­hoe we looked out across Combesgate Beach and it was look­ing great. I’ve nev­er surfed at Combesgate before, prob­a­bly the only place on this part of the coast I haven’t. The tide was ebbing and not far of low tide so was the per­fect chance to try it out. At high tide the water just crash­es up to the rocks. Park­ing was easy here, there is plen­ty along­side the road and with it not yet mid morn­ing, plen­ty of spaces avail­able and the park­ing charges are less than some of the car parks in the area.

Once in our wet­suits and boards waxed, we were down the steps and into the water. No mat­ter how much I stretch and warm up, those first few waves are always the worst but once los­ened up, the fun begins. It was­n’t a very big day, no more than 2–3ft on the odd set, but this is how I like it. We end­ed up surf­ing for 3 hours, great fun but at the end of it I was done! If I had stayed at home and seen the web­cams I reck­on I would have cried. We got back to the vans just as the tick­ets were about to expire, feel­ing excep­tion­al­ly hun­gry and ready for Sun­day lunch.

Often when vis­it­ing Woola­combe I will take a route in via Braun­ton which gives a chance to stock up at Tesco. This time how­ev­er, fol­low­ing direc­tions giv­en by my iPhone’s Waze App, I took the B3230 via Mud­di­ford and noticed what looked like a good pub to stop off for Sun­day lunch, The Mud­di­ford Inn. There­fore, with the appetite of a wolf we stopped off on the way home and found they serve food until 8pm, result! Roast chick­en for me, fol­lowed by sum­mer fruit crum­ble and cus­tard, now that’s a good way to regain my lost calo­ries! The sun was shin­ing still, the weath­er was on our side and sit­ting in the gar­den was a great way to unwind before the jour­ney home.

It was time to say good­bye to Matthias and Sam, until the next surf trip (next week­end no doubt). More often or not, when trav­el­ling with friends in oth­er vans it’s a case of con­voy­ing home, but not rec­om­mend­ed in this instance, as sug­gest­ed by Matthias, his 1.9td is stan­dard, no tun­ing to the tur­bo or fuel pump so that sad real­i­ty of 50 MPH up hills. There­fore once past Barn­sta­ple I left them and took off home­ward bound.

NOTE: Thanks to Sam for many of the pictures.