Anyone fancy a walk?

Years ago traditionally there was a Church youth club ramble on Easter Monday. Growing up in Surrey for some reason it was always Dorking to Friday Street, or Box Hill but as we're in Devon we can do beach. So for anyone who fancies some sea air, here we are, a little trot across Bigbury beach to Burgh Island on the South Devon coast plus I've made sure there are facilities. We checked it all out on Saturday and perhaps we'll do more of these as the weather improves, there are some beautiful, hidden coves around the Devon coastline.

Tide's out so a beautiful walk across the beach, bit windy so mind the kamikaze kite flyers and their aerial mattresses (does a kite have to be that big?) Sadly the fabulous art deco Burgh Island Hotel firmly out of bounds to all but paying guests, so we'll walk around the island instead, but take a look here, several rooms named after some of the more famous clientele.

Challaborough Bay looking stunning and empty from our island viewpoint. We'll nip into The Pilchard Inn for a spot of lunch, The Pilchard is right next to the hotel on Burgh Island.

If we stay a bit too long, and the incoming tide from the Bigbury end of the beach meets the tide from the Challaborough end, we're stranded and will have to get back on the sea tractor.
Now who wants a drink? Bookhound's round.

Comments

[jo dobson]

Hi

Thanks for the memory!!!!

I spent many long summer holidays on Bigbury beach in the 60's. It still looks the same apart from the hotel being a bit posher! You are lucky to be able to get there easily.

[Myrthe]

Thanks for giving me some sea-pictures. There's not much sea (none to be precise) to be had in Armenia. In Holland I used to live a couple of kms from the sea. Now I miss that from time to time. There's plenty of other beautiful nature to be had in Armenia, though, so I really shouldn't complain.

[Sally Z]

I enjoyed that, DGR. Thank you. Nothing like a bracing walk before breakfast to get the blood racing. I think I'll pass on the drink, thank you all the same, Bookhound, but a full English breakfast will go down very nicely but first I need to change out of my dressing gown and slippers . . .

[m]

Memories for me there, too - remember accidentally on purpose missing the tide and having to wait in the pub for the sea-tractor (or was it the other way round? No, we'd have been stranded there for hours waiting for the tide and I don't remember being as pickled as that!)
We used to peep through the windows of the derelict hotel (this was easily 30 years ago) and imagine its former glories and the flappers who danced there. I always meant to go back when I heard that they'd restored it ... it's still on my some-day list of treats. Pity it's so expensive!

[dovegreyreader]

Sally, you can share my pot of tea!

[justine picardie]

I've spent many happy hours on that very beach with my children. Thanks for taking me there today!

[Margaret Powling]

Thanks for that virtual bracing walk around Burgh Island. Himself and I had our 25th wedding anniversary lunch a deux (sorry, can't do accents) many years ago and I also wrote a review of a lunch there several years later (the new owners took some of my less-than-complimentary comments on the chin, and I trust that service and cuisine have both improved since then.) However, I've never visited the Pilchard Inn and it was something of a coincidence that just before logging on to today's blog I was looking at a photo of this very inn which appeared in an article I wrote for Devon Life several years ago on inns connected with smuggling, this being one of them.

[kay]

I live about 10 mins drive away from Bigbury, it is a lovely beach. The cafe has excellent food too.

[dovegreyreader]

Kay how lucky you are, all those lovely walks.
Margaret, the hotel is so private even I was put off exercising my right to roam and wandering up the drive. I'd love to have taken a few pics inside.

[JACrow]

Remind me to tell you the story of how we had to phone the Pilchard one night to ask why Jon(bookshop) (and my sister's naughty boyfriend, Lewis) had failed to come home for dinner on the mainland one wet and windy night. Suffice it to say, their excuses, though slurred, were entirely understandable.. though utterly unforgivable at the time. Also, when we weren't freezing our bits off in South Devon at Easter, we too were doing that bracing Box Hill/Friday Street trudge. Bet we passed eachother more than once. Not that we'd have noticed for the streaming tears in our eyes...

[dovegreyreader]

JACrow, I nearly died on that wretched Box Hill escarpment where we were also dragged on every school geography trip to examine the chalk landscape. I was messing about and started running down the steep side (the scarp? The dip?) and couldn't stop. Life hurtled past as did the trees and I ran right across a road halfway down and just carried on, eventually collided with a tree and pulled my arm half out of the socket as I grabbed it. Any mention of Box Hill now makes me feel distinctly queasy.

[Lizzie]

What a shame I didn't read this before our sojourn in Devon for the last few days! Never mind, it will keep for another day. Thanks, DGR, for the reminder of a special place to visit.

[Lizzie]

What a shame I didn't read this before our sojourn in Devon for the last few days! Never mind, it will keep for another day. Thanks, DGR, for the reminder of a special place to visit.

[Sheila]

Gorgeous pictures - thanks for the beautiful afternoon out at the beaches.
(Just catching up on a week's worth of blog reading, lots of nice treats here!)
Could you make this photo-walk a regular feature, once a month or so? I come for the books and stories, but love the glimpses of your beautiful countryside.