Westward Ho!

 May 16, 2022

Westward Ho! Devon, England

We arrived here yesterday after 26 hours of travelling from Missoula, Montana.  We took 1 car, 2 planes, three trains, a tram (to visit the Mall of America whilst we were in Minneapolis), and a bus! 

Needless to say, we were completely exhausted and not quite in our right minds.  We wanted to try to stay awake as long as possible as we arrived around 2 pm local time.  A decision was made to walk the three miles to Appledore, a neighboring town, and grab something to eat.

After a lovely walk through the neighborhoods near the coast, we ended up in a lovely little place called the Beaver Inn. It was still quite early, but we were hungry, so we ordered a couple of pints and a sausage sandwich. Oh my goodness, the sandwich was ENORMOUS!   We were thinking that everything is always bigger in the U.S., so we ordered two. We could have split one and still had leftovers! 

We spent an hour watching boats go by. There was a group of older men rowing quite a large boat, each with one oar and a cox.  it was like a typical crew of 8, but the boat was very wide and very deep.  We were also entertained by a sailing race.  One of the participants was really having a rough day and kept capsizing.  I desperately wanted to go out there and help the poor lad! After our meal we wandered the three miles back to Westward Ho! and tried to stay awake as long as possible. We walked about 7 miles today. We made it until 7 pm, and then turned in for the night.

  

We woke up at 6:30 am, so I think we are back on track for local time and hopefully jet lag won't bother us too much. We are staying at the Waterfront and it's a Bed and Breakfast.  Our room is the Appledore, the name of the town we walked to yesterday.  Going to breakfast was interesting!  We sat down and were given a menu that included a full English breakfast, cereal, American pancakes, yoghurt and berries, sausage sandwiches, egg sandwiches, and much more. David ordered the full English and I ordered a sausage sandwich.  When our food arrived, it was again, ENORMOUS! I was wondering if I could have ordered more than one thing because I really just wanted a little bite of the sandwich and then maybe some yoghurt.  

As I was mentioning this to David, we overheard a table nearby start to order.  Each person ordered multiple items, like a full English Breakfast, Fruit Salad, Frosted Flakes, and a large apple juice, EACH!!!  Mind you, the people ordering this massive amount of food were about half of my size.  David and I were clearly the largest people in the room.  It is like these women weighing in at 75 lbs. soaking wet, could eat that much???  Sure enough, every table that came in were people that were on the petite side and all of them ordered enormous meals.  I was shocked when the apple juice came as it came in a pint sized glass.  Maybe there is something to this walking stuff.  We'll have to see how our first 11 mile walk goes tomorrow.  Maybe I will shrink in size and be able to eat half a cow when I am finished! 

After this massive meal, we decided we needed a little walk.  Coming out of our B&B, the homes across the street were so colorful that I just had to take a pic!

We walked east along the shore and were surprised that people were actually in this swimming pool that was built into the rocks...

Every so often along the path in town there will be these little feet markers to tell you where the path goes. The acorn is a symbol for the path.

The walk along the path was lovely and it rained on and off, but not enough to really get us wet.  Stopped at a bench and the view was so lovely There is an abandoned house at the very west end of  Westward Ho! and you can se it as the closest building in this picture. We found another path going back into town and it was covered in greenery.

We stopped for tea in town, but the scones didn't look good so we decided to walk the path going east. You can choose from a couple of ways. We had walked the inland path when we went to Appledore, so we decided to walk on the path through the grass that takes you out around the golf course to a visitor's center.  Next to the visitors center was a great place to get tea and scones, so we had Devonshire Tea!  It was lovely sitting outside even though it rained off and on.

On the way back we decide to walk the beach.  The rocks to the left gave us a little bit of a windbreak too.  I have to say, walking on the soft sand was nice on our feet! We only walked about 5 miles today.

About five minutes after we got back to the B&B, it started pouring down rain!  Not sure how we missed it, but that sure was lucky!

Quentin and Suzanne Rhoades arrived and we are so happy to begin this adventure with them.  First stop, a drink outside as the weather is perfect!

Quentin stopped to have a chat with the local lifeguards and explained to them where exactly Montana is...

This last picture shows the 12 Meter tide change, apparently second largest in the world according to a local lifeguard.  In an earlier picture you can see me walking on a large expanse of sand with the rocks off to my left.  This is taken from the other direction. The sand is gone and the water is well up the side of the rocks!

Until tomorrow... when the real path walking begins!