I'm calling this a Moorish Trip 'cause I'm starting on the edge of Exmoor and ending on the edge of Dartmoor!
I didn't get the earliest of starts (by my standards) but was away from home just before 8am. I made a quick call in to services for breakfast then cut through the Cotswolds to the M5. It's not quite the quickest route but it's preferable to dashing round the motorways. What I didn't expect to see was a garden shed driving the other way! I believe it was the one that featured on Shed of the Year a while back.
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The next stop was Gloucester Services. These were opened a few years ago by the same operators as Tebay on the M6. They are certainly not your average services! No McDonald's, Costa Packet, etc. but their own run restaurant & cafe and a farm shop. I'd deliberately waited until I got there to stock up on some fresh produce and wasn't disappointed.
The Strange Contraptions in the title of today's blog refers to the Helicopter Museum at Weston-Super-Mud. I have to say you very quickly get whirlybird overload. There are big ones, small ones, huge ones and tiny ones! The place is absolutely packed out with helicopters and various forms of autogiro. I find the latter the most interesting, including one that was built into a plywood dinghy designed to be towed behind a ski boat. The cafe did a decent lunch as well.
I decided to skip the M5 for the run to Minehead, partly due to the 7 minute delay getting to the motorway, it seems strange that they've dug up the large roundabout on the main route in to a holiday resort just as the season is getting going! The trip along the A38 and A39 isn't much slower and far more pleasant.
The caravan site is right on the edge of the town, but just isolated from it. I could have had a pitch at the top of the site well out of the way but they're a bit far from the toilet block and sloped the wrong way. I had a brief explore, i.e. found a pub where I watched the Derby for no reason other than it was on. It was a friendly place with decent beer so I may go again.
The plan for the next couple of days is to not move the 'van at all. Tomorrow I'm planning to walk to Dunster, only a couple of miles, where besides the castle there are various other attractions. There is a village guide which, on the map, shows "Countryside Paths" and "Countryside Walks (Wellie Walks)". A simple and useful distinction IMHO. Monday it's back to the railways.
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