The last full day in Exmouth

They say time goes by quickly when you are enjoying yourself, and this holiday is evidence enough of that.

Thirteen days ago, we had only just arrived in Exmouth town, now it seems we have visited its nooks and crannys and can find short cuts and easy routes around and beyond the town - a perfect outcome to the holiday.

Morning

Being Thursday, as I explained in the blog post last week, I spent the morning dealing with Parish Admin duties including drafting the newsletter for this weekend. Drew read his novel while I was typing away, so things were quiet.

Walk

At Midday, tasks complete, it was time to take a walk. I have mentioned before that Phear Park runs behind the accommodation - we can hear the sounds of the park when sitting on the balcony. Strange then that we had not gone to explore it before today.

The park has a grand entrance and lots of green areas, both manicured and wilder forms of parkland.

From the park, the walk continued to one of Exmouth's many churches. The Church of St. John the Evangelist in the Anglican parish of Withycombe Raleigh with Exmouth, an oddly named parish given Exmouth's size compared to Withycome's!

This is a large church, but unfortunately was locked, so the photos are only of the outside, but that in itself is quite impressive.

From St. John's we continued to a sister church closer to the town centre called All Saints. There was a parish meeting happening in the vestry, so, though the church is normally locked we were able to get in to take photos of its attractive stained glass - more photos can, as always, be viewed on Flickr.

This church clearly stands in the High Anglican or Anglo-Catholic tradition with the presence of Stations of the Cross, something not seen often in Anglican churches in my experience, but the third set I've seen in Devon's Anglican Churches in the last fortnight. Perhaps the strength of Methodism in this region made the established church more likely to steer in the High Church direction? 

Returning to Phear Park, Drew photographed the memorial to the wars and to the World Trade Centre bombing (9/11). The memorial includes some materials from the South Tower which fell that day.  

We got back to the house at 2pm having walked 4.5 miles.

Afternoon

The afternoon was time to start packing and beginning to plan our departure from the house tomorrow morning. We sorted everything that wasn't needed in the morning, ready to do the last elements of packing then.

At 6.45pm we left to walk down to Rockfish, where we had our first dinner in Exmouth, and where we now have our last.

Dinner

As I explained, when we came to Rockfish at the end of July, this place is all about the fish, and much of it about fish which arrives in Brixham from the fishing boats that have been out to sea in the last 24 hours.

The menu has some regular options, but the major part of it is a list of fish, which the server marks to indicate which ones have come in fresh today. Tonight, Ben, our server, highlighted the Brill, the Devon Lobster, the Plaice and the Ray Fin.

While we decided we enjoyed the Sourdough with spicy Anchovy Mayonnaise. It was delicious, fluffy, well raised bread with a sharp tangy mayonnaise with generous amounts of anchovy mixed through.

For starters Drew had crisp fried cuttlefish served with Singapore chilli sauce. Drew really enjoyed this, having had cuttlefish (Jibia) in Spain when he refers to it as 'Budgie Food'. In Spain it is often hard and chewy and used to bulk out a stew, here it had a soft texture tempered by the light batter in which it was fried.

I choose the large red prawns, fried in a tempura batter also served with Singapore chilli sauce. The prawns were huge, as you can see below, the tempura was light and crispy. The overall impact was of well-cooked prawns being hugged be a gentle friend in the batter, the chilli sauce was slightly fruitier than Sirchia, and combined well with the tempura.

Drew was taken by the motto, only visible after he had eaten his starter, which indicates that Rockfish food is recommended by the locals, with pictures of seagulls, the real natives of this area!

For mains Drew chose the fresh plaice, this came filleted and was cooked to perfection. There was a gentle salting to the fish with no hint of bone. The skin was crisp and char-grilled for added flavour, the fish was soft and mellow as only Plaice can be.

I had the freshly caught Brill, not a fish I eat a lot of something that I really need to change, as it was delicious. The top of the fish (there is a whole question of whether fish have a top or bottom side, but as it was cooked this way, I'm going to call the side facing me in the picture the top!!) was scoured, to allow for cooking all the way to the bone, and this made the flaky flesh ease away from the bone. The underside was crisp, but still easy to extract the flesh from (once I'd finished the top and turned the fish over). I think brill reminds me of sole with its lightness, but with a more robust taste bringing it closer to Turbot. 

The side dishes we choose were [Co-Pilot's Note: Unlimited, dear readers, Unlimited 🍟] chips,

Green Salad

and wild samphire. The samphire provided a salty note and the greens had a sharp vinegarette which made them very appealing

Drew decided as it was our last night in town, he would have a dessert. It was a simple Lemon Posset with Raspberries. He says it was lovely, with a nice amount of Lemon to add freshness without being either to sharp or two sweet. It was perfectly set and folded on to the spoon. The raspberries were juicy and fresh and blended well with the posset.

We finished out meal with an espresso each.

Then went for our last walk around the town and up towards out accommodation. Even though it was 8.40pm by this time, the beach and sea were still full with people enjoying the light sea breeze.

The sun went down, bringing the day, and our time in Exmouth to a delightful end.

We got back to the accommodation at 9.30pm and uploaded the photos to Flickr and beginning this post. We were in bed by 10.30pm

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.

Return to Exmouth

We walked up through the village, past the train station

to the bus stop

fifthteen minutes later the no 57 came along, we got on and headed back to Exmouth.

We arrived back at 4.15pm in time to shower and dress for tonight's dinner, which will be in the next post.

We had walked 11km, just under 8 miles and 18,000 steps - keeping that step count nice and high.

It had been a lovely day and pleasant relaxing preparation for lots of eating tonight.