At 6, it’s Olga’s turn to explore the stunning coast. She puts on her hiking boots an leaves for Tintagel castle along the coastal path. It’s stunning in the morning light, totally abandoned, with super views on the caves, arches, cliffs, waves. It’s 5KM walk. She takes many pictures, but only finds out later that the camera is on manual focus, so all pictures are blurry.
She arrives at 8 at Tintagel castle (very late as she walked to many look-out points for the pictures). There, she puts the camera on auto focus so luckily we have a picture of Tintagel castle in golden hour:
Tim prepared breakfast in the meantime, and together with the kids he picks-up Olga. We pack the rest of our stuff and leave at 9 for Arlington Court. We’re not sad to leave the campsite, as it has 50 families and three toilets and two showers and two sinks. There are lines for everything. We skipped the shower and kept everything else to the minimum. But we will miss Cornwall with its dramatic cliffs and beauty. Bye Cornwall, you were lovely!
Arlington Court is an 1820 country house in Devon, 1 hour drive away. The Chichester family used to live there, until the last daughter died childless in 1949. The house is relativly simple, but fun to explore. The main attraction is the carriage museum in the stables.
Here they have the most complete collection of carriages in the UK, with lots of information on the different uses and trends during the Victorian age before the advent of the car. Then, many were used to keep chicken and they gone rusty in forgotten corners of farms…
The children can dress up, play with horses and carriages, and we explore the garden. We also enjoy some tea and the lovely sunny weather today.
Then it’s time to head to our campsite in Exmoor National Park. For the first time, we have a campsite of the National Trust. There is a different public here, with proper waste management, and we even spot a De Waard tent. We find a nice pitch next to the river and make up for this morning missed shower with a river dip.
It’s a fun river with many stones and small water falls. Zeno builds a professional dam and Cleo uses her hat as a boat. After 40 minutes, Zeno starts shiffering again and we warm up in the shower.
The kids make some friends, we cook dinner and put on our jumpers, as it’s cool next to the river, and the sun disapeared behind the mountain. Besides a National Park, the area is also a Dark Sky Reserve, sadly the prediction of tonight and tomorrow night is 100% cloud cover, so no stary nights for us
