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.)

... like the shoreline and the sea

Every year I aim to get down to Devon for a day with my two Bristol-based offspring. We holidayed there for decades, back when we had a caravan, and still miss how easy it was to spend time there. 

This year it was particularly hard to herd us all, even with the assistance of the family border collie, but at last we managed to find a day when we were all free and set off down the M5. 

Smugglers Lane, Holcombe

fleabane and hemp-agrimony

Having parked in Windward Lane, we negotiated the ferocious traffic on the A379 Teignmouth Road - which Cwtch the Collie, on her first visit, really didn't like - and headed down Smugglers Lane to Holcombe beach. 

I'd seen photos posted by a friend who lives locally on Facebook last autumn, after Storm Babet, noting how high the sand was at Holcombe, but it was a bit of a shock to see it for myself. 

Sprey Point

The sand was still high the Teignmouth side of Sprey Point too. I don't remember seeing it like this in all my life. 

After lunch at the Ship Inn, we caught the ferry over to Shaldon. Remembering how our old collie, Ted, loved these trips, and always affected a salty sea dog pose ... 

... I was interested to see how Cwtch, who'd only ever been on a stationary narrowboat before, would cope ...
 

... and whilst she lacked her predecessor's flamboyant stance, she still seemed to enjoy it. 

In Shaldon we made straight for dog-friendly Ness Beach, down through Smugglers' tunnel. 

Looking north-east towards the Ness and, in the distance, Exmouth

Looking south-west towards St Marychurch and Babbacombe

There were a lot of crystal jellyfish washed up on the beach. We found a patch that was relatively free of them and had a sit-down. 

Time to go!

From the far end of the beach, we wandered back up the tunnel and around the top of the Ness - always one of my favourite walks, though I prefer to do it back-to-front these days, so that the longer, steeper section is a descent. 

Artist's conk

I'd watched videos of the tide surging right over the Point at Teignmouth during Storm Babet last October, and from the top of the Ness, it was clear how much sand has been lost from this end of Teignmouth beach (this photo taken at low tide).  It does make you wonder how the town will fare during this year's autumn and winter storms.

Then it was back across the ferry, and ice cream with clotted cream at what used to be called Amanda's but is now something else, and back along the sea wall to Holcombe. I used the excuse that Cwtch didn't like the traffic to wait at the foot of notoriously steep Smugglers' Lane for Son the Younger to bring the car down to us. Nicely played, if I say so myself.

Not a lot of sea glass, largely because of the extra sand on the parts of the beach accessible to us with a dog, but Son the Younger did find an interestingly-shaped miniature stopper, now on the mantlepiece. 

I think she likes it ... !

It's just the way it changes ...

Springtime trips to Teignmouth and Shaldon in South Devon to mark the birthdays of one son or both have become almost an annual event (pandemic notwithstanding). Yesterday our party comprised just me and Son the Elder, Son the Younger currently working and residing up north in Coventry.

It was also the first time we'd been down to our hallowed ancestral grounds since the death of both of my parents, with whom we'd spent so many holidays there. We discussed how this felt on the way down in the car, and decided the main emotion was one of gratitude for the happier times of our childhoods, many of which happened there. 

The darkness of summer was already evident in Smuggler's Lane in Holcombe, with the first Hemlock Water Dropwort beginning to flower on the edge of the stream running down to the sea ... 

... and, judging by the noise from the trees overhead, a rook, dead and tyre-flattened, poor thing.

We pressed on, past incipient clumps of thrift and sea campion ... 

... and up around the steps beyond the railway bridge ... 

... to the sea wall. I never tire of this approach, or the view to Shaldon and beyond, even though some of the South West coast path books advise cutting this section of the walk out altogether because it's so urbanised and spoilt. (This is a fair point when you compare it with the wilder, wildly beautiful sections of the path, but Son the Elder was carrying 31 years' worth of memories with him, and me 60, and this makes all the difference.) 

Yesterday even the ordinary was beautiful to our eyes. 

Chips on Teignmouth front for dinner

Teignmouth dock was devoid of ships, something I hadn't seen since before the miners' strike, when Polish coal was imported through smaller, non-unionised ports and changed their fortunes, in stark contrast to the mining communities, though I might be reading too much - Brexit, war in Ukraine, etc - into this. 

We had to wait a turn for the ferry to Shaldon, which was loading passengers hard by the jetty rather than in its customary spot at the end of the slipway. A holiday maker ankle-deep in water some feet out from the steeply sloping beach suggested that the tide had done something interesting to the contours of the beach that were still underwater. 

Once we were out in the estuary it became apparent, if only for a moment, that we were actually in Turkey or on the Adriatic ...

... at least as long as you kept looking in the right direction. 

Once in Shaldon we decided to walk around the Ness the back way, which turns the long steep drag up from the Ness Hotel into a descent, and is thus more comfortable for me these days.

Even so, we sat on a bench around the back of the cliff-top zoo for a breather, where we were joined by robins and blackbirds that are clearly very used to humans and have little fear of them.

The trees on top of the Ness have only been there since the late 19th century, but some of them are looking pretty venerable these days.

I don't think I'll ever quite get used to the absence of the red-painted mine that used to stand at the Ness Viewpoint, and which we always put a few pennies in for charity - I think it was the RNLI. Though it's there in my head, of course.

Back in the village we had a drink at the Clipper, and then Son the Elder walked back to Teignmouth across the bridge, while I took a return trip on the ferry, passing a few favourite crannies on my way, remembered from earliest childhood, when we used to stay locally in various B&Bs and chalets.

Over on Teignmouth back beach the earlier issue with the beach and the ferry had been revealed by the falling tide. 

It was a bit like being in the sort of dream where a place is really familiar but the lie of the land is wrong. 

My meeting point with Son the Elder was the bench in Northumberland Place, where we hoped to get an ice cream from Amanda's, and this allowed me to wander through my favourite part of Teignmouth, with its narrow side streets and glimpses of the estuary. 

A shaft of sun was shining directly on Keats' House (which might or might not be some days but definitely was yesterday).

Amanda's isn't called Amanda's anymore, but you can still get ice cream with a dollop of clotted cream on the side so that's OK.

We made friends with a pied wagtail while in post-ice cream recovery.

Poor foxes

I see sea slater on the sea wall

Back at the Holcombe end of the sea wall, we sat for a time while I investigated my pockets for treasure. Clearly my eye was in for sea glass yesterday, rather than stony representations of the cosmos. 

Then back down the steps, up the hill to the car and home. A gift of a day.