Landslips and stormfalls

By some strange miracle, it proved quick and easy to find a day when both my sons and I were free for our annual day out to Devon, so off we went, a lot earlier in the summer than is usually the case.

We were overdue a visit to Dawlish and Dawlish Warren, as the last couple of years we've headed south along the sea wall from Holcombe to Teignmouth and Shaldon, but the storm damage to the pier and the landslip on the Ness from earlier in the year had to be viewed for ourselves, so once again we set off down Smugglers Lane with a very happy little collie. 

The weather was overcast, but it wasn't too hot or wet so we were thankful.

Half way along the sea wall at Sprey Point and I've already got wet feet

The biggest flat top shell I've ever found, albeit with a broken point

We had a very pleasant lunch at The View, the cafe on the ground floor of Pavilions, which I visited for the first time last year to hear Raymond Antrobus read.

It was only the very end section of the pier that got washed away ...

... and the remainder is still open, so Sons the Elder and Younger went on to play The Tuck Shop slot machine - which was my favourite when I was a kid, back in the simpler 1960s, as well as one of theirs too - but it's not there anymore.

Even from Teignmouth, you can see the big red scrage down the dear cheek of the Ness caused by the landslip in March.

We crossed the estuary via the ferry. As further landslips can't be ruled out this soon after the first, the coast path around the Ness headland is closed, so we couldn't walk it, and instead headed up through the village, where swallows were zipping up and down the main street, to the beach beyond the road bridge.

It was good to get a distance glimpse of Buckland Beacon and Rippon Tor on Dartmoor. 

Then Son the Elder did his customary walk across the bridge and around to the ice cream shop in Teignmouth, where Son the Younger and I met him after walking back down the river beach and crossing the river by ferry.

Sadly, our ice creams were less than impressive this visit, the customarily huge dollop of clotted cream atop our cornets now reduced to a smear, so we agreed we would visit Gay's in Dawlish next time for a proper Devon treat. (I've just got to get over the shock of the brutalist replacement sea wall that so disfigures the coast there in the meantime.)