My Devon Delights!!

I have just returned from a short break in Devon with my husband to celebrate out 1st Wedding Anniversary & what a great time we had.  I have never been to Devon before so it was nice to go somewhere new in the UK as there are some beautiful places & this is definitely one of them.

We stayed at Torquay in a luxury 5* B&B about a mile from the sea front called The Berburry Hotel. I would recommend this little place as the rooms were very comfortable and clean and even had a large bathroom with a full size bath (don’t get many B&B’s with a bath). The service was fantastic and the attention to detail impressive.  The owners Wyn & Jan couldn’t do enough for us and the breakfast was to die for – didn’t need to eat again till the evening as so much selection. We will most likely return to stay here again.  We stayed in room 6 which was a superior room and was lovely with large bay window, see picture below.

We left home early at 4,30am so we would have the full day there and miss the traffic, so we arrived about 8.30 am and had a wonder round the harbour were we saw a sign for a trip on a wildlife cruise and may see dolphins, seals & birds, it was a 2 hour trip & cost £10 per person so we booked onto this for 11am.  We headed for a coffee and sat on the marina watching the world go by till it was time for our trip. It was Ok but didn’t see any dolphins or seals even thought they told us they had been seen in Brixham Bay (just to get you to go on I think) but we enjoyed it all the same as weather was glorious. The ferry was called ‘Dart Princess’ – Not quite a Princess ship – ha ha! But we relaxed and enjoyed the scenery anyway.

After the cruise we headed to the hotel to check in and unpack & eat our packed lunch we had brought with us – which was breakfast but we had MacDonalds on route instead so waste not want not!

We headed up to Babbacombe which is a small village with great views and a great beach which is accessed by a short train ride which we did and relaxed on the beach for couple of hours as we were pretty tired from being up early.

Going Down!

Going Up!

We went back to the hotel to freshen up then went out to dinner by the Marina which was lovely at a place called ‘Shiraz’,  then went to the amusements as Adam loves to do that when on holiday and we had a request from my beautiful niece Jessica to win her a teddy bear, so we tried but failed on this occasion. We tried again the following night with a bit more success & then some as you will see.

We looked at the boat trips again to see what to do the next day as it was our anniversary so wanted to do something special – we saw a trip that went to Dartmouth and to Slapton Sands where the D-Day landings practice was carried out so though we’d do that one – there were leaflets at the hotel for all different attractions so picked up a few and decided that was the one we would do.

On Saturday morning which was our 1st wedding anniversary after a magnificent breakfast I had a bouquet of flowers delivered to the hotel which Adam had pre-arranged with the owners – sneaky.  They were beautiful and Jan put them in a vase in the room for me when we went out.

We headed down to the pier to buy our tickets for the boat trip which was on board ‘The Fairmile’ a world war 2 heritage ship which visits Slapton Sands where exercise Tiger took place… here is the history of the boat:-

History of the Fairmile B – During 2007 Western Lady III, who had plied the waters of the Bay since 1947, left, it was thought for good, for the seas off Dorset. In 2009 she returned, purchased by our company, to once again grace our local waters. After a short but intensive refit she returned to duty during July 2009, renamed as Fairmile. Rescue Motor Launch 497 (RML497) was part of His Majesties Royal Navy and played an active part during the Second World War rescuing downed airmen including other very challenging roles.  She was designed in the 1940′s by Noel Macklin a famous motor car enthusiast as a flat packed vessel which was transported to be assembled around the country.  Our Fairmile was assembled at Southampton Steam Joinery and immediately went into service to help defend Great Britain. The decision to rename her Fairmile is to honour her origins and pedigree as a vessel of His Majesties Royal Navy seeing service during World War II as RML 497. Many hundreds of Fairmiles were constructed during the war as inshore vessels for a variety of uses, from Motor Torpedo boats (MTBs), Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) to Motor Launches (MLs). Their construction was the original ‘flat pack’. Factory made on a production line and assembled in ports all around the country. RML 497 was constructed as a Rescue Motor Launch, a Fairmile B hull type, and was commissioned in 1942. She carried a crew of two officers and thirteen sailors. She saw service out of Scapa Flow, Appledore, Dartmouth and Felixstowe. Although she never fired her guns in anger she was involved in many clandestine missions and a commando raid on the Channel Isles following D-Day.

Her main duty was to rescue downed aircraft crew, especially if the weather conditions were too rough for RAF Air Sea Rescue launches. Many vessels identical to her were used in the costly raids on Dieppe and St Nazaire acting as troop transports. It is thought-provoking to travel on Fairmile today and notice just how vulnerable these ships would have been when under fire. Especially considering that they were of a wooden construction and powered by petrol engines.  Today you need have no worries, the engines are reliable diesels and the only possible projectile, deposited by a seagull!

We had an amazing day on board ‘The Fairmile’ – the captain John and the crew Ross & Chris were extremely knowledgeable about the areas visited and very nice people to get on with, very helpful to all who were on board and very comical making it a fun experience as well as interesting.  With great weather too we couldn’t have asked for a better day.  Ross even announced our anniversary after chatting with Adam so we got a round of applause – a nice touch!

Dartmouth was a lovely place, we had about 1 & half hours here but enough to have a wander round & grab an ice cream. We then headed back to the boat to go to Slapton Sands via Blackpool Sands with a few jokes about where the sand came from – you had to be there!

It was really interesting learning about exercise Tiger took place in 1944, they even held a 2 minute silence on board to remember those who lost their lives. I won’t tell you too much as this trip is a MUST if going to Torquay or Brixham.

A few pictures taken during the trip, my husband thinks he’s David Bailey.

We had such a good time we went to do the same trip the following day – the crew loved it & treated us like V.I.P’s which was great, so please if you visit Devon go on this amazing trip, it is all day from 11am till approx 5.30pm for only £12.50 – such great value and great fun!

Thanks to the guys at Greenway Ferries.

We went out for a nice meal that evening to a lovely Italian called Bianco’s – the meal was lovely and service was great so another recommendation if you are there,  after dinner we headed to the amusements as still had our task to complete which I can say was successful, we won 5 teddy bears so I kept one and had one very happy little niece & nephew as took them up to give to them yesterday.

I could go on about my trip but I won’t, just one more thing I have to tell you, Jim Davidson (comedian) was appearing at The Princess Theatre, Torquay on 28th July so we bought tickets to go & see him – he’s not everybody’s cup of tea but we like him & it was well worth it.  He was very funny and kept us laughing throughout with his comical take on his arrest in which there was ‘No Further Action’ taken, an apt name for his latest book which we bought a copy of and he signed it.

During the performance one lady who was sat right next to me kept shouting out and being rather rude whist Jim was talking, it started to get on my nerves so we had a word with staff during the interval, so they came and sat near her.  We moved seats as couldn’t bear it but she carried on, me being me shouted out for her to shut up, Jim asked what was going on, she was removed and he thanked me in front of everyone.  After the show we had a chat with him as he was still signing books & I earned myself a ‘selfie’ with him – see picture above. That was the highlight of the night and we had a really good time once the offensive lady had gone.

We really enjoyed out little break, not quite a cruise but still managed to spend most of it on the water!

On our last day we met up with Ross from the boat for a few drinks – a friend for life there and we will go back to Devon and do the ‘Fairmile’ again and meet up with the new friends we have made.