Famous spits: Ukraine, NZ or Devon

Mother's day 2013 - me and Lola spit
visiting in the rain.

Lola with my friend Sally. Count those boats.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a look at the world's best spits - thanks to a trip to Dawlish Warren in Devon. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Dawlish Warren is famous for its spit. Well famous if you are doing a GCSE in geography.  The rest of us know it's got a world-reknowned SSSI bird reserve and lots of sandy beach space. Two long beaches actually back-to-back, thanks to being a spit...

It takes about an hour to walk the length of the spit - although this shouldn't be done in bird nesting season, or with a dog on a lead longer than 2m, or possibly when a severe gale is blowing in spear-sharp hail (see pix right).  But if you do have a go the reward is seeing a spit (land eroding on one side and forming on the other, see more here) and as many as 8,000 resting birds at high tide - depending on the season.

• Spits can be huge - the longest in the world is Arabat Spit, in the Ukraine, around 110km. It's easily visible from space claims this group of spit-afficanados.
• New Zealand's Farewell Spit is 32km. It's often described as the "fish hook pinned to the top of NZ's South Island". 
• Other famous UK spits are Chesil Beach (which is 189 miles long) and Spurn Point on the Humber, Yorkshire which is 4.8miles long.

Read more posts about Devon, here

Over to you
Where else can I go in the UK that offers a taste of  the Ukraine or NZ?

Enjoy Exeter even in the rain

On a walk near Drogo Castle, Devon look out for
dippers - or brown trout.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post shows how Devon is much more than cream teas and summer seaside pleasures, plus ideas on what you can do on a rainy March weekend visit. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

We played pooh sticks with twigs, to improve
the game Sally says use logs (maybe not here)

Venetian chandliers, Norman-themed libary, Lilliput doll's house in the garden  - all ought to be on the must see list when visiting Castle Drogo, the last castle to be built in England. But on a short weekend visiting friends in Exeter I managed to forget my National Trust card and so was kept outside this promising family home. And what an outside offered in the grounds of Castle Drogo - wild views of Dartmoor, steep sides of the Teign valley, bridges you just have to cross (even though you don't want to be on the other side of the river bank) and wonderful wildlife including a really good sighting of a Dipper. I'm ashamed to tell you I only know this bird thanks to a Country File special. But with its distinctive white breast, plus the ability to fly, dive and swim underwater it's definitely a must-look-out-for-bird. The few other people we saw walking along the river bank were invariably peering through binoculars too.

While Sally and her son Kier zoomed nimbly along the riverside-path Lola and I were distracted discussing an Arthurian style battle clash on the steeply wooded river valley sides.  Later we all enjoyed a virtual battle victory veggie lasagne in a family-friendly pub about 20 minutes walk from Exeter quay, the Double Locks. It's the first pub I've been to that has a volleyball court, real beer and wood-pannelled bars.

Sally with Lola outside Exeter Cathedral. Pay
to enter or visit for free by joining a service.

Exeter has four twin cities: Rennes in France, Bad Homburg in Germany, Terracina in Italy and Yaroslavl in Russia. Clues to these places may be hard to find, besides it's hard not to think of this city without seeing classic English-Shire ladies or adding the word "cathedral" or "university" town...And when you get there, even in the rain, Exeter is lovely. There are plenty of craft and antique stalls down by the historic Quay, even the opportunity to rent canoes or a bike for off-road adventuring (the Exe trail bike path starts right here if you fancy a ride to Exmouth).

Midway between the cathedral and the newest branch of John Lewis, which opened in October 2012, Lola and I stumbled across the ruins of almshouses where all events seem to have happened on Saturdays. How do I know? Because each room space is marked with a paving stone into which info has been carved, eg, "new well bucket ordered". Clearly Exeter is ahead of the trend when it comes to making the past seem more accessible by focusing on very small daily details. Although no doubt "new well bucket" would be a red letter day for some poor old soul.

Bright pink lures in
visitors to Exeter's Museum.

Exeter has also got the country's best museum of 2013, The Royal Albert Memorial Museum - a space in town where everyone meets or wanders around after shopping. I loved the Devon paintings and the way the stuffed animals had been dusted down and given a dawn chorus soundtrack. The starfish collection is amazing, just for its size and in other rooms you can see displays on how people used to insure their buildings from fire; or ways fashion changed. There's a video re-enactment of how Devon's landscape was formed - a chance to enjoy lots of volcanoes exploding (we are talking deep time here) and dinosaurs walking around. Plus national exhibitions on tour - until mid May 2013 have a peek at the BP portrait prize and also the Veoila Environnement competition for wildlife photographer of the year.

Wheelie bees help make  Exeter  museum's
collection more fun for  kids.

Tots can drag along a busy bee suitcase to better explore the museum. There's a dressing up outfit, explorer trail and magnifying glass: very sweet.  Plus a lovely cafe run by Otterton Mill for the classic Devon cream tea, or just a decent non-chain cappucino. Cities - and towns - like Exeter that have created a must-go-to-often free attraction deserve a real thumbs up.

Nell insists we buy liquorice sticks
and apricots  in  St Austell.

What a contrast to St Austell - just two hours down the train line - which has no obvious central meet-and-play point. See the pic left of surely that town's most interesting attraction, a spice shop with a sign that claims hippies aren't welcome...

Useful

• Exeter museum - open tues-sun 10am-5pm. free.
• Read all about it: see the early part of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. 

Over to you
Where do you recommend visiting in Devon - and what do you like doing?

Be plastic bag free

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Lola, Nell and I are staying near the first town in Britain to go plastic free. Modbury is a really small Devon town, but from 1 May 2007 its independent retailers resolved to quit giving out plastic bags. Since then Hebden Bridge in Yorks has been inspired to follow suit, as have Saltash in Cornwall and Dunoon in Argyll.

Modbury's move came about after a local woman, Rebecca Hosking, showed them a film she had been involved in that helped people really understand how bad loose plastic bags can be on wildlife.

Find out more at http://www.plasticbagfree.com/ including how to get your community to quit the bad bag lady look.

I'm six and at work

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nell (who enjoyed her time at Morwellham Quay & Copper Mine even the 10 minutes working to find the green gold copper ore)

"Although the children had to do a 10 hour day I found it fun banging stones with my hammer. And I found copper, the grass overseer on the dressing floor area (where the kids worked) was very pleased with me."

Victorian school

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Lola

If you went to school (parents had to pay) it was from three to eight years. I would have already left because I am nine. You wrote on slates with a slate pencil and then rubbed your work off with an old rag. You weren’t allowed your hair down if you were a teacher, and if you were a woman you also were not allowed to be married. The teacher at Morewellham Quay started at 16 years. We had a go copying proverbs in Victorian writing (copperplate). Nell and I weren’t very good at it, but mummy was.

Exploring the River Tamar

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Canoe Tamar http://www.canoetamar.co.uk/ offers guided river trips from Cotehele to Morwellham Quay, with a quarter of an hour stop off under the Calstock Viaduct in Cornwall. As it wasn’t far from here and I’ve been itching to get back into a canoe we spent the morning exploring the river. The River Tamar is spectacular in this area curving along what appears to be a lush bowl shaped and peaceful wooded valley that 150 years ago was home to the biggest copper producing mine in Queen Victoria’s empire – and the seam had been worked for centuries earlier than that. We are more than 20 miles from the sea but the river is still navigable and has been used as a pack horse, and linked with canals, which helped gets goods in and out easily.

There were about 18 other canoes with us, but as I turned out to be much the slowest paddler (Lola and Nell joined in occasionally but they preferred to sit and eat sweets in our big Canadian-style canoe) we were invariably at the back of the party so had the river to ourselves apart from an extremely friendly guide – sometimes Sue and sometimes Jo. This meant we had the lightning struck chimney and a sizzled oak pointed out on the Devon side of the Tamar; learnt about the lost village of Newquay that archaeologists only recently rediscovered and are now digging around in and heard the haunting whistle of the miners’ train going into the shaft of the George & Charlotte copper mine. It wasn’t a ghost express because they now run hourly trips for tourists visiting the World Heritage Site.

The river is strongly tidal so our group used this to go up river. Even so whenever the wind blew a little gust my canoe headed for the 2m reeds nestling into them until I convinced it to nose its way out. It was very atmospheric paddling through this – I felt as if we were in the Burmese jungle, but the river made us all mix metaphors… Nell saw the old mine workings on the hillside and asked if they were made by giant rabbits, and Lola kept saying she’d had a nightmare about the various structures – the viaduct, the wonky chimney – that kept emerging as we rounded the river’s bends.

At 1pm the tide turned but as we were only one corner away from our canoe end point we managed to paddle home, not more than 10 minutes after the others. And instead of being wet we were sunned, relaxed and able to leave the packing up to Canoe Tamar (tel: 0845 430 1208) while we bought delicious Cornish pasties at the Victorian bakery and then ate them on the back of a cart pulled by a Clydesdale to give us another view of Morwellham Quay http://www.morwellham-quay.co.uk/.

Beach life, almost Ibiza

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Our friends Debbie & Adam, plus their children, are complete beach babies so it was a pleasure to find ourselves on a beach in Devon with them claiming this was as good as Spain (albeit admitting that in Ibiza the sun is hotter, the sea bluer and the water seems safer and warmer). Adam took it one step further saying he thought “this was the best beach he’d been to in Devon”, which is quite an accolade for someone raised near Dartington.

Arymer Cove – the nearest walkable beach – is gorgeous: a large shingle spot reached by public footpaths along the cliffs or through a very lush green valley. It feels like a smugglers’ spot and they’re aren’t ever more than a couple of other people there – very different from the tented out bits of sand at Bigbury on Sea. Debbie & Adam were ending a camping trip with a beach picnic to enable both sets of kids to have a very long play before they took off for London. After a picnic of Devon apple juice, local cheeses etc the girls dared the waves, Ethan networked, Adam explored the iron pyrite rocks that were glistening in such a way that maybe they should be rechristened idiot’s silver (rather than fool’s gold) and Debbie and I lay chatting as we sunned. It was one of our most relaxed days on this trip.

Philosophy & odd socks

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (pic is of Nell who has become something of a butterfly magnet with a Red Admiral and other admirers)

To help me share a bit of seaside info with the girls we went to a lecture run by the Aune Conservation Association http://www.aca.aveton-gifford.co.uk/ at Thurlestone – which would be nearby if there wasn’t the tidal river. You’d think The Ecology of Bigbury Bay might be a bit dry, but there were more than 60 people crowding the smart village hall, and Lola and Nell (the only kids) were riveted by the presentation. To be honest this amazed me – I keep thinking if they enjoyed it so much why were there no other children at the talk?

The talk was given by the retired head of Modbury School, Gordon Waterhouse using his friend Brian Ashby’s slides. Using a great deal of humour Gordon talked us down river from the salt marsh and the tidal road to the cowrie shells (delightfully named trivia) and on to the cormorants’ razor sharp nesting place on the cliffs of Burgh Island. We also learnt about Albert – a man who must have recently died who made his home in a combination of three wrecked boats, kept his spare change in a sock (now that is a good idea) and clearly led an alternative lifestyle that made a lot of the locals very suspicious of him. Gordon called him a recycler and a gentleman – praise indeed.

I especially liked the calm philosophy he introduced inbetween his bigging up of a local conservationist celeb, George Montagu, read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Montagu (he found and named the daytime flying Tiger Moth and also the Trivia cowrie shell). By the time we left (at half time) it would be hard to have missed that there are no ends that can’t be called beginnings; and that none of us are indispensible – even if we think we are.

Put another way every odd sock has a use. Lola and Nell’s suggestions include using as a purse (of course), make puppets, make oat balls for the bath, add to a scarecrow, arrange in colour and size and pin to the wall, etc, etc

Skim boards

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

The girls love jumping the waves at Bigbury-on-Sea, but it’s clear the other children at this blue flag beach are enjoying using body boards through the quite gentle surf. Although I know it can’t stay this hot I decide to buy them something similar – a painted wooden (ply) version that turns out to be a skim board. Not only can you surf with it, you can also slither it along the shallows, jump on and look as if you are gliding into the sunset. It helps if you are a teenage boy.

Successful skim boarding may be cool, but it’s also very easy to fall off and bust bits of you - and the poor person you’ve crashed into. As a result I will be leaving the ones I’ve bought as a gift for my lovely friend Kerry who has kindly lent us her house in this area. Cross fingers her kids stay safe on it.

Gloom in the car park

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Borrowing and renting cars seems to be making my already poor parking skills far worse. Every car is a different size, obviously, and every county seems to have a different approach to parking though from the Borders south paying for use is pretty much obligatory. Switching bikes is just as complicated on the gear front, but parking is a doddle.

And so it is at a South Hams car park after a day on a Devon beach that I am ashamed to find a #70 fine on my rental car. I have failed to park its wheels within the white lines of one box. Bustards. It’s a punishment that reminds me we are now in the over-crowded south east (well south west) where every bit of space has a bigger value than you’d think.

Lola’s always asking what it’s like to be a grown-up and now I can tell her. It’s about knowing sets of invisible rules that must be obeyed (or you are fined) whilst carrying out tonnes of shockingly dull and monotonous tasks (eg, cleaning). As this makes being an adult so unattractive I tend to focus on the good bits like making your own decisions about when to go to bed and what food to eat. But Lola knows that’s not much more exciting than a bit after her, and pasta.

Glorious food right here

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Everywhere we’ve travelled we’ve tried to use independently owned shops and locally sourced food – as a result we’ve had some very delicious drinks and meals. But here in Devon local fine food moves into a new category. Everyone’s at it! Within walking distance of the village we are staying in is a 13th century pub, whimsically named The Journey’s End. Its menu is locally sourced, changes daily, has a veggie option and all adult portions can be served up for kids. The landlords, Jules and Paul, are super friendly – even to people with children – which turns out to be normal behaviour from all the shopkeepers I’ve bought stuff off so far. (This is something La Fromagerie owners in Highbury could learn a few things from, it makes spending so much more pleasurable!).

Then there’s Ringmore Stores/St Ann’s Chapel Post Office that is open 7 days a week, offers an internet service (something not a single shop in Hexham could manage!), takes cash and cards and stocks zillions of local produce including cheese, English wine, Westcountry meringues, South Devon chillies etc. Not surprisingly it won the Best Village Shop & Post Office in the South Hams 2006 – and then held a celebratory BBQ with 250 of its customers. Despite needing to queue when the daytrippers come past to pick up supplies for the beach the owners are calm, friendly and chatty. They make feel you are on holiday.

Up the road is a pick your own at Kitley, off the A379, tied to one of Riverford Farm’s farm shops. This is a brilliant find at 5.30pm on a Friday evening when you think that all there is to eat for the weekend are Pringles & a variety pack of cereal bought from a petrol station. The farm shop sells every imaginable luxury but also bread, milk and organic veg.

If you can tear yourself away from the stove then there’s also the Venus Café (see pic above of Nell choosing her favourite locally made ice cream & cone) at Bigbury-on-Sea which looks like a cheerful chips and tea kind of a place but offers a menu with gluten free choices, fair trade drinks, local ice cream, home made chips etc… And the takeaway mugs explain what’s going on:
“Drink in the view. It’s stunning isn’t it? We aim to keep it that way.
We use natural toxic free detergents and cleaning materials preventing damage to the beach, sea or any wildlife.”

If only every county was as eco-conscious as South Hams.