Devon 2022: Beside the Exe Estuary

Today our journey was a gentle walk along the Exe Estuary, but before that a few updates.

Update on yesterday

While on Monday there was a lot of driving, as reflected in that day's blog post, I forgot to mention that there was quite some walking, or rather strolling too. Buckfast, Dartington Hall and Dittisham all involved moving around to see things, so by the end of the day I had walked 13,600 steps which is 5.05 miles even though it didn't seem anywhere near that much. It was 14,800 steps for Drew.

Morning

I woke up half an hour earlier than usual this morning. Which was a good thing as with four hours of editing, uploading, naming and amending 352 photos it was quite busy. Before every photo Drew took yesterday he'd say: "At least I'll have a quiet morning". He was right!

Drew took particular pleasure photographing the stations of the cross at Buckfast in a random order knowing I wouldn't be able to help myself sort them so that they ran from 1 to 14! [Co Pilot's Note: What, dear readers, we don't believe him do we - mwwh, mwwh, mmmh]

I then began writing the blog post which meant we left the house later than we initially intended. But as today is a posh dinner day. It didn't make a great deal of difference as on these days we are walking locally, rather than heading off early.

On the Exe Estuary Path

As with the other walking days, Drew's Strava provides a better route outline than Google maps.

As you'll see from the graph in the left corner, there weren't any hills on this walk, except the one we had to walk down to get from our accommodation to the start of the trail.

We departed home at 11.30am, walking back into Exmouth to join the Exe Estuary trail for our walk to Topsham, a village we have driven through five or six times, but never stopped to view.

One of our friends, Malcolm, recommend we take some time there and he was right it is a lovely place.

The path was not just flat, but very even, at times it looked as if it may have been a railway, but the line ran beside us for much of the way - possibly at one time the path was a second line - but it is very well maintained and easy to walk or cycle. The views across the estuary, even with the tide out, were amazing. There are yet more on Flickr.

We walked the path past Lower Halsdon Farm,

via the memorial to Joanna Toole a local UN aid worker who died in an aircraft accident.

past the back gate of Lympstone Manor,

through the village of Lympstone with its clock tower and High Water gates

past the Royal Marine Commandos centre, where they appeared to have parachutes hanging out of there windows??

and the through the small, but apparently wealthy village of Exton with its Puffing Billy pub.

next were the RSPB hides for bird watchers, and there were a few (I mean watchers, there were plenty of birds)

and into Topsham itself.

Topsham's church of St. Margaret made for an enjoyable visit.

The Tower is of medieval origin,

but the Church had become very run down when in 1867 the Methodist built and established a fine Church a little way down the road.

The established Church reacted and in the following two years raised funds to renovate St. Margaret's in classic Gothic style.

It has some pleasant stained glass mainly from that era

and memorials to a local family we seemed to produce lots of Admirals.

Drew was also pleased to meet some old friends in the church:

The Church was positioned by the original Saxon gift of land, and gave access to, and views from, the surrounding river, over which it in turn has great views and access.

Late Lunch

At just after two, having walked around the independently run and owned shops of Topsham and enjoyed looking in their windows. We found a Cafe, called The Cafe, and stopped for some lunch.

Our original plan was for Drew to have the Cream Tea (fruit scones with cream and jam) and I to have the Savoury Tea (cheese scones with cheese and chutney). However, they had run out of cheese scones. We still both had the tea

And Drew had his tasty Cream Tea, which was delicious, the cream was fresh and the scones very fruity. He was very pleased.

I opted for a goat's cheese and bacon salad, thinking the cheese and bacon would be broken up and sprinkled through the salad. Nothing like it, this was a whole warmed cheese with lovely strips of bacon over it served with a salad it was amazingly delicious, but not what even I would call a light lunch! Still, I did enjoy it.