Another bright sunny day in Brixham, no really, Honest truth the weather was gorgeous!
We set out this morning around 10:15am on a walk to Berry Head. Our walk took us around the end of Brixham port, past the replica of Drake’s “Golden Hind” ( the ship he set out in on a 3 month cruise in 1577 and came back 3 years later after circumnavigating the globe. It goes that Deb’s grandmother’s friend , Ronnie Cottam, was responsible for bringing the replica to Brixham, a nice family connection. We continued on around the port up past the marina and past the ¾ mile long breakwater that shelters the marina and port. There are hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes in tne marina, most are sailing boats.
We walked up passed the Shoalstone Outdoor Saltwater Pool (these are something of an oddity here) and onto Berry Head Hotel. The views from there were very good.
We then connected to the Berry Head walking trail and set off through what looked like rain forest, it was a woodland. It was very peaceful on the trail, birds singing all around us in the cool of the forest. The trail ended close to the top of Berry Head, and we turned towards the channel and walked through the Napoleonic fortress and up to the light house. Yes, this is the light house I wrote about yesterday, it has the dubious distinction of being amongst both the shortest and the highest lighthouses in Britain.
We sat and enjoyed the sights of boats sailing passed and the coastline to the south west. There are large colonies of birds nesting in the cliff tops along the coast.
We headed back retracing our steps into Brixham and had crab sandwiches from the same little shack as yesterday, delicious. We sat and ate them at the end of the port and watched all the goings on around the town. One thing we have noticed is that a lot of the locals have dogs, and a lot of them take them walking with a pram or stroller. Yes, if the dog gets tired it gets put in the pusher to finish the walk, strange!
We headed back to our BnB around 2pm, it hadn’t been made up which was disappointing, but we survived! Deb wanted to read/rest in the afternoon, so I took a walk around town and out along the breakwater. Brixham is a great little town to walk around in, so many interesting nooks and crannies.
Being the 3rd Friday of the month it was £3 “Local Fish Friday” at the Rockfish takeaway (the takeaway part of the restaurant we ate at on our first night here. Who can knock back £3 fish and chips, certainly not the locals, they were queued up 20 long outside the door of the shop when we got there! They do seriously good fish and chips. There were people sitting all over the waterfront of Brixham eating their £3 “Local Fish Friday” fish and chips. It must drive the other fish and chip shops crazy.
We had a walk through the main shopping area of town, grabbed an ice-cream and sat and ate it outside the shop. A bit later we took a walk up to All Saint’s Church to have a look around. They had a Friday Evening music night on inside the church, but a delightful lady at the front door allowed us (even encouraged us) to have a look around. The church was built around 1815 and is gothic in style, and very plain in decoration. It’s first Vicar was the Rev Francis Lyte (the composer of “Abide by me” – see yesterday’s blog for the story about him). Like all churches it had great acoustics.
This was our last day here in Brixham, we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow with many adventures to be had before we get to Falmouth for a 2 night stay.
