Day 50 (8th August 2022)

 So I really am on the last leg of this amazing adventure with only 10 days to go.

I was really hoping that stop #106 was going to be me and Pale Blue Eyes, but a last minute festival booking meant they weren't in town. I'm happy for them, the more people who get to hear them the better. Anyway we have a date at a small venue in London and at Krankenfest  - I can't remember which comes first.

I also had arranged to meet a friend for morning coffee in Dartmouth but a covid scare put paid to that too. Guy and I have managed to completely avoid ever catching covid (seems wearing masks at high risk events like gigs certainly paid off) and I would have been gutted to have had to cut Germinal CCXXIV Road Trip off early because of it.

So with a few extra hours to spare, I headed off first to Exeter Cathedral 

and then to the Donkey Sanctuary near Sidmouth

I love donkeys - every time I see one standing on a beach or on a street corner in the blaring sun in somewhere like Greece, my heart breaks. 

After patting every Donkey within reach, I headed off to the coastalry in search of stop #106

SHAG ROCK (2)

I know one or two of you have seen my old list of Germinal CCXXIV places elsewhere online, and in that list I described this Devon Shag Rock as resembling a dildo (from a certain angle it really does, trust me). Sadly its phallicness was hidden by the high tide. The walk from Alphard to Shag Rock was kind of epic and involved 4 parched fallow fields and an extremely long cliff walk between Littlecombe Shoot and Branscombe Ebb. By the time I had descended and taken the pic, a swim was essential. Not having my swimming shorts or a towel deterred me not at all, so I stripped off and took the plunge. There wasn't a soul around to tut, luckily.

It was bliss.

I soaked my Penelope Isles cap in the water just before I tackled the walk back up. On my way, I stopped at one of the little wooden houses that are dotted up and down the cliff path to ask a woman if she owned or rented it. She told me "we own them" which I took to mean each one is owned by an individual rather than her owning all of them!

They have to be some of the most exclusive and expensive beach huts in the land and I seriously coveted one. 

According to a couple of blokes about to head off over the cliff on a sheet of nylon and some strings, we were approximately 600 feet above sea level.

I felt a mile high. Map courtesy of Ordinance Survey, of course.

Next stop was going to be another Carrion place name, but the most gorgeous church distracted me  - St.Winifred at Branscombe. With parts dating from pre-Norman invasion, and parts dating from 1148, it is old and beautiful. I couldn't help but go inside.

Next stop is a National Trust holiday cottage with an absolute chocolate box look to it. Stop #107

GREAT SEASIDE

I won't tell you how difficult it was to find this one. Actually I will. VERY! Stopped for another swim, this time with swimming shorts on.

By now, time was getting on and these teeny tiny Devon roads were getting crowded. I've had weeks (well, decades) of practice of manoeuvring wide vehicles through narrow spaces, and felt confident enough to either tell people to reverse or beckon them forwards despite the look of abject horror on their faces at the thought of scratching their nearly new Audi. But some people just freeze. Luckily I had absorbed enough west country Zen and patiently let them sort themselves out in time. 

The drive into my last stop wasn't actually as bad as I feared. I read somewhere that this place is one of Camerons favourite places, so I was half expecting another Rock. It wasn't quite that bad. Stop #108

BEER

There were a lot of Union Jacks flying around and a lot of very new looking cars in the car park, but it felt kind of likable and a not unpleasant place to have a holiday in.

I didn't actually have a beer in Beer but I did buy a bottle of Branscombe gin, although truth be told, something tells me it isn't really made in Branscombe!

Campsite is OK. I'm too shagged out to venture any further to check my surroundings tho.

Allons-y 

Douglas Germinal CCXXIV Brain over and out.