Being a Tourist 2023

Now that we are properly settled in here in Wales it's a good time to really start exploring what there is for us to see and do.  We've always felt that we didn't really explore Devon properly when we had the chance and we really don't want to make the same mistakes whilst we're here.  Especially as there is so much for us to see and explore around here.  Obviously, we are still trying to keep our spending low to help with our long-term goals, but we don't want this to be at the complete expense of enjoying ourselves now.  Thankfully, most of what we like doing is free /cheap and we have also been given a Cadw membership as a gift which has opened up even more things we can explore for free.

After doing a little bit of looking around we now have an initial list of places we want to see, walk, and swim around that are close to us, along with a couple of helpful books that will be useful as we're still getting to know the area.  This should make it easier for us to quickly make a decision about what we're going to do when we have time off.  Once we have more of a clue we can start working out our own walks to explore even more of the areas we've gotten to know.   One thing I definitely want to make sure that I do is explore the walks that are right outside our doorstep as it's all too easy to only think about walking in the Beacons, but then I'd be missing out.

As we've just started out we haven't crossed off too many things yet.  There is also the slight issue of our mismatching work shifts which means that we don't get as many days off together as we would like.  Though we would like to visit as many of these places together as we can, there have been some walks that we've done on our own just so we can still get out and see things.  We also want to fit these around learning to surf, but this just means that we have to be a little bit more organised to fit all these in.

Most of the places we've been about to cross off on our 'tourist board' I've already written about, but the most recent one was the Blaenavon Ironworks.  This turned out to be a very enjoyable day and also involved us having a little exploration around Blaenavon itself.  It's actually very close to where we live so I'm not entirely sure why we haven't visited it already.  It's very interesting to see how we use to make iron, but I personally really liked the workers' cottages that were on site and which they had decorated in the different styles of the decades that the cottages were lived in.  They seemed the perfect size for what we would like now, but maybe with a bathroom added on rather than just an outhouse down a lane.  There are a couple more industrial sites we would like to explore near us, especially as these played such an important role to those who lived here in southern Wales.

One thing we want to concentrate a little more on is wild swimming as we haven't done too much of that yet.  The warmer weather that is meant to be coming our way would make this the perfect time to really give this a go.  At least now we have all the equipment that we need to do this comfortably and we can just head out to a spot and enjoy it.  In fact, it would probably fit perfectly with surfing practice.

Plans Afoot 2023

As you know we've moved........to Wales, and all the plans we'd made previously no longer applies.  So, it's time to make new ones.  We're still trying to save money though so that means that we need to find stuff that is either free or as cheap as possible.  I've already started making a list.

We still have our National Trust membership, which is a gift, and there are quite a few places around us where we can go and gawp at luxury we will never be able to afford and that I'm glad we don't have.  It also means that there will be a few places where we can park for free when we go walking.  Of course, there is a whole lot of historical sites that are not owned by the National Trust (some of which we saw when we were on holiday here last year) and it'll be interesting to get to explore them too.  However, as they will most likely cost money we'll need to space out our visits to them.

We're wanting to get back into wild swimming again this year and, to that end, we brought the Wild Swimming Walks book for South Wales to give us an idea of places we can go.  We're going to start local to begin with and of course there's always the sea as well which isn't too far away from us.

I've also been looking at some pre-mapped walks in the area to help get us acquainted with the area.  I've picked walks that are relatively long so that it's more of a day event and included locations like the Black Mountains as well.  Once we get use to them we can start to map out our own walks to explore the area more.  There's also some hill walks that start right outside our front door and would mean no need to drive anywhere beforehand.  I'm also trying to find some old books that contain possible walking routes (and by old I mean pre-1960s) to see if it is possible to walk them still.

And then there's the coastal paths all around Wales that would allow us to get back to the sea again.  I'll need to research this a little more but they should be very easy to follow.  Of course, it would be practically sacrilege to not be in this area of the world and not visit Pembrokeshire.  Summer is always good but some part of me would also like to experience it when the winter storms are rolling in as well.

There is a lot to explore here and it'll take us a while, but we don't want to make the same mistake we did in Devon by not properly taking the opportunity.  The biggest issue for us is that our work shifts won't always match up so we won't have as much time to do all the walks and activities we want to do.  We will also be visiting family on some of the days we have off together as well.  I'll do some exploring on my own, possibly to places I know my husband won't be too interested in like the wool museum, but it wouldn't feel right visiting all the sites without him.  Especially as his work involves him getting to look at mountains all day long, but not getting to walk up them. 

We Moved

So I've been away from this blog for a while now, but I do have my reasons.....we moved.  And by that I don't mean just to a different flat but from Plymouth to the Brecon Beacons.  I had planned to do some posts about packing up our things and moving but I have to admit that I did get a little bit overwhelmed by it, even though we were just moving within Britain and I've never really gotten overwhelmed about moving before.  I think part of the reason was that we had really set roots in Plymouth with a whole load of plans of places we wanted to go to and things we wanted to do, something I hadn't really done before.  It was also our first home after getting married.

However, we were still excited by the prospect of exploring a new location and of my husband starting a job more in keeping with what he wants to do.  Trying to focus mostly on that we packed up our flat, shoved it all into the back of a van, and headed north.  Before it came to our move date we had been spending all of our free time researching what type of properties we could rent, what areas we would like to/ would be able to move into, and what types of jobs I'd be able to get.  It was looking like we would have to rent an unfurnished property, which would have led to quite a big additional expense and I was also researching where we could buy secondhand furniture, but in the end we were able to find the furnished house (yes you read that right, we've been able to rent a house up here) to move into.

Due to the fact that we'd been a little bit sad about leaving our previous home I wanted to spend the first week or so getting this new house into feeling like our home.  It's amazing how just putting up our books around the place made it feel like our space.  Now that our nick nacks and pictures are everywhere it definitely feeling more cosy.  I also spent that time sorting out our council tax, insurances, changes of addresses (why are there so many), and, of course, joining our local library.

And then there's all the new locations to find and explore, and I've already started putting together a list of possible places for us to go.  It'll be especially good to get back into the mountains again as we're now right beside them and we also want to get back into wild swimming as well.  From the basis research I've done so far, there seems to be quite a few opinions around us.  The one thing we will miss though is the sea and it does feel a little strange to not be able to see it straight from our window anymore.  However, it's not too far from us and there are lots of walks we can do there as well.  I think we'll probably end up spending a lot of time there just to make sure we get our seaside fix.  We should hopefully be able to get back to learning to surf again as well.  

Another thing that was high on our list was to find out where we could get refills for our dry groceries and cleaning products, which we've been successful with thanks to the husband, and that search has meant we've also found some towns and villages with good looking pubs which could work well at the end of a walk to explore.

Now that we're all settled in I should hopefully be able to get back to blogging regularly again, this time with a Welsh flavour.  I'm hoping to document all the exploring we get to do in this new area, though there is a possibility that when I finally get work our shifts might not match up again so I might have to do some of that exploring on my own.  One thing we did feel bad about when it came to leaving Devon was that we didn't explore the area as much as we had intended to (a common issue I know), so we plan on making a real effort to not do that again here.  There is a lot to see and, you never know, we might get to see some of it on a rain free day............not holding our breath though.

Walking and Wild Swimming: Woodcombe Sands and Ivy Cove Circular

In keeping with our plans to walk and wild swim more we decided to do one of the walks recommended in the Wild Swimming Walks: Dartmoor and South Devon book.  I won't go into a long description about the route as it's written in this book and, for once, we did actually keep to the recommended route instead of our usual getting distracted and wandering along different paths.  I will say though that this walk was really good and we will probably do it again, or at least a variation of it.  It has the perfect amount of walking (a good mix of easy and a little bit more challenging, which is exactly what you want for a Sunday walk) and swimming.

It definitely helped that we lucked out with the weather, which was clear skies, lots of dryish heat, and the right amount of cool breeze to make it bearable.  However, that is perfect weather for burning if you're not careful and one of us may have gotten a little red from it.

We were worried that as it was a Sunday during the summer holidays this route would be a little busy, but thankfully we were able to find a parking space in the village that you start and end at (East Prawle) without getting in anyone's way and the beaches we swam from were pretty quiet too with only a handful of other people.  As for these beaches (Woodcombe Sands and Ivy Cove), they were a great find as they are clearly not used very often, probably because you do have to go kind of far on foot to get to them, you can swim out quite far without having to worry about boats etc being a problem, and they had very clear waters.  Unfortunately we didn't see too much wildlife when we were snorkeling, but the visibility was still really good.

We wanted to travel quite light and so didn't take our heavy wetsuits with us instead, I just took my swimming top and went with the knowledge that I might not be able to spend too much time in the water.  It did feel very cold when we first started to walk in, but I actually got used to the temperature and was able to stay in much longer than before.  The distraction of snorkelling at Ivy Cove really helped and I floated around until I noticed the beds of my nails started to go a little blue - a pretty good indicator it's time to head back out.

Both of us have had Covid and we're both having to deal with a prolonged cough so we weren't sure how easy we would find this walk, but both of us were pleasantly surprised.  It did highlight some fitness issues we need to work on before we do any multi-day walks in the future, which is good information to know.  However, I do feel that the swimming did actually help with my cough, at least for a day, so more wild swimming can only be a good thing.  I would definitely recommend this walk if anyone is looking for a nice way to spend a few hours.  The book recommends that you take about 2 - 3 hours to do this walk, but once we had taken our time and done all the swimming and relaxing on the beach it actually took us about 4 hours.  We also followed it up with a relaxed drink at the cafe in East Prawle.  Definitely one of our favourite ways to spend our days off together so we'll definitely be doing more of it in the future. 

Walking: Sharrah Pool Circular

We made a plan to go walking and swimming whenever we had a day off together (and didn't have errands we couldn't put off) and when that day came we decided to do a short walk which included a wild swim to get us started.  This was the Sharrah pool circular walk in the Wild Swimming Walks: Dartmoor and South Devon book.  

I'm not going to go too much into the details of the route as it's already in the book, but it's a 4 miles circular walk that takes you through some ancient woodland along side the River Dart and a little bit of the open Moors.

We were a little bit lazy in the morning and so didn't get to the starting point, New bridge car park, until late morning.  Which unsurprisingly meant that the free car parking was full and as we didn't have any change on us for the other car park we decided to change our plans and drove to Holne, one of the stops on the walk, to find a parking spot there.  Normally I wouldn't park in a small village like that as I don't like taking up parking spots the residents would normally use, but as we planned on eating lunch there it felt like it would be okay.  We then started the circuit from there instead.

The start of the walk was predominantly in the woods and I'd almost forgot how nice, cool, and peaceful it is to walk through woodland.  The smell always makes me feel like the air I'm breathing is really clean, which is a nice feeling even if not necessarily true.  This part of the walk was pretty easy, though there is a bit of a hill half way along, and it felt like we'd been walking no time at all when we reached the pools.

It's been a while since I've been wild swimming and I will have to admit that getting into the cold water was a bit of a shock to the system.  I really need to increase my wild swimming so that I can get use to this again and it might also be a good idea to stop having scolding hot showers every night as well 😂.  Despite the cold at the time and the slight struggle to keep my breathing in check when swimming, it did feel really good afterwards and was worth all the discomfort.

It did take us a little bit of a while to find the path that goes straight up the hill and out of the gorge, and if you were still feeling a little bit cold after the swim the incline of this section will definitely heat you up again.  Once you've reached Bench Tor you get a good view of the gorge and some of Dartmoor, which made us wonder if we could actually do a larger loop that would include the other side of the gorge (turns out you can and we'll be trying that out in the not so distant future).  

Unfortunately you only get to walk a little bit in the open moor surrounded by coconut scented gorse before you have to walk along the road back to Holne.  It's never a good way to end a walk and I can see why the original plan has you walking through a section of woodland before you're back to the car park.  However, it did mean that we ended the walk at the Church House Inn for a lovely, and it was lovely, pub meal and a stroke of the even more lovely pub dog Guinness.

This was definitely a lovely way to start walking and wild swimming again.  The legs got a good stretch, I got a nice reminder (if I needed one) of why I love walking and wild swimming, and I got some useful information like I'm not great with cold water anymore and my legs are no longer used to walking up very steep hills - at least for now.  More practice is needed and, with that in mind, there are more walks planned.

Exploring Devon: Part 1

It's been a little bit difficult these last few weeks to match up mine and my partner's days off so that we could do the exploring of Devon we've been hoping to do.  Due to this, we haven't gone as many places as we originally hoped, but we have managed to get in a couple of trips and they have definitely been worth it.  

Wild Swimming - Sugary Cove

This was our first (and only so far) wild swimming trip since getting our wetsuits, but it was definitely a good one to start with.  Sugary Cove is a lovely, small cove that apparently doesn't get a lot of visitors other than the locals.  To get to it we started by parking above Dartmouth Castle and then walked along the South West Coast Path for a couple of minutes before reaching the very steep steps that take you down to the water.

I'm not going to lie, the water was very, very cold, but it's a good, sheltered bay that feels very safe to swim in.  It would be good to come back with snorkelling gear and have a proper exploration of what's lurking under the water.  Especially as these waters are pretty clear, which means there should be quite a healthy ecosystem to stare at.  We didn't spend too long in the water as I'm definitely not used to that temperature anymore, but I'm hoping I'll become more acclimatised to the temperature so I can spend more time enjoying the swim.

Walking - Wistman's Wood looped walk

This was a lovely short-ish walk to get back into the swing of things and it felt really good to get my walking boots back on.  We decided to do a looped walk as the path to Wistman's Wood on its own wasn't going to be long enough.

We started off at the Two Bridges car park and heading along the well-worn path to Wistman's Wood.  Don't be fooled by the small size of the trees (mostly beautiful oak) as they think that this wood is the remains of an ancient forest.  Most of the trees have a contorted form which, along with being covered in mosses and lichens, would give the woodland a wonderfully eerie feel on a foggy day.  This is what most of Dartmoor would have been covered with and it's a shame that it doesn't cover more area.  I liked it, but I think it would be good to go back in summer to see what it's like when it's really green.

Once we'd had a good little wonder through the woods we headed uphill towards the Tors.  We decided to walk a little further north than we had originally planned as it was so lovely to be outside and headed for Higher White Tor which we could see directly in front of us.  It did go uphill quite steeply, but I felt very comfortable doing the incline despite the lack of walking recently and, better still, I felt like I was breathing very comfortably (a problem that I've had for a few years).  

Once we'd had a good look at the view we turned back south and carried on along the high ground to the east of the woods, scrambling over Longaford Tor and walking past Littaford Tors.  Then it was back onto another well-worn path that carried us downhill towards the car park.  

In total, the walk probably took us about 2.5 hours and gave us a good view of the other areas of Dartmoor we're planning on visiting in the future.  

So, only a couple of trips this time around, but definitely more to come in the future.  The nicest surprise how easily my body took to walking again despite the length of time since I've done it properly.  The cold during swimming has been the less enjoyable part, but I'm sure I'll get used to that soon.  However, we now have a taste for it and are already planning our next trips out into the 'wilds'.  On the plus, if it keeps raining the way it has been on our days off together that doesn't affect our ability to swim.

Hoped for Relaxed-Lockdown Activities (Outside)

Now that the UK Government is beginning to reduce the restrictions we have to follow during lockdown we've been taking a realistic, rather than fantasy pie in the sky, look at what we can now do when we leave the flat.  Of course, it all involves being outside and, more specifically, going walking/trekking and wild swimming.  It's still a little vague at the moment, but this is the plan we've got going so far.

Wild Swimming

We couldn't have come to a more perfect location to go wild swimming.  Devon and Cornwall are filled with great locations and many are close enough to us that we wouldn't be breaking the 'stay local' rule advised by the Government.  We've got the wetsuits so we can spend longer in the water and will be getting a whole lot of use out of them in the coming months.

We have already had a little swim in Sugary Cover (near Dartmouth) so we know the wetsuits mostly work, though I do need to fix the arms, and these are some of the locations I'm intending on visiting next:

• Cowsic Waterfalls Pools
• Salmon Leaps, Teign
• Peartree Point
• Elberry Cove
• Haytor Quarry
• Sharrah Pool
• Anstey's Cove
• Seaton Hole

To be honest, the list is almost endless.

Walking & Trekking

This is yet another thing in which we've lucked out on location-wise as we're not only close to Dartmoor but also a number of coastal walks.  Obviously, there's no longer the mountains we're used to, but these walks are looking just as beautiful and some can be just as challenging.  We're also looking out for a good tent so that we can do some wild camping which will allow us to extend our time outside on our days off.

There are a number of day trips that we can take during our wanderings, but these are some of the longer walks I want to do in the future:

• Two Moors Way (Devon Coast to Coast) - 100 miles
• Erme-Plym Trail - 15 miles
• South West Coastal Path (Britain's longest National Trail) - 205  miles
• West Devon Way - 37 miles
• Tarka Trail - 163 miles
• Templar Way - 18 miles

It is very unlikely that these will all be done by the end of 2021, but a full-grown woman can dream.

If I'm honest, the main thing for me at the moment is just the opportunity to spend some time away from the city getting my legs moving, and where the noises are a little less traffic and people-based, and a little more wind, wildlife, and crashing seas.  I'm also really looking forward to finally being able to properly explore the area I've moved to, and I'll let you know what I find.  If there's any locations and walks you think are good and that I've missed on my little list then please let me know.  There's only so much you can find when searching online.