The day that we traveled from Bodinnick to Beesands was a special day because it was Rebecca’s 9th birthday. Notice that she’s wearing a “9” button, which is a common thing for kids to wear on their birthdays in England. Gwendolyn already has a “6” button in anticipation of her 6th birthday coming up in mid-June.
Here’s how Rebecca really felt about her birthday!
While it was unfortunate that Rebecca’s birthday had to be the travel day, we treated the whole week as her birthday. Plus, she got to do her favorite thing three times that week: go to the beach! Here are a few more pictures of the birthday girl.
Here, you can see that Gwendolyn was just as excited as her big sister that it was Rebecca’s birthday:
Rebecca’s birthday breakfast at the Old Ferry Inn:
Shopping in Fowey for new books courtesy of Kevin and Michelle:
And hanging out on the quay overlooking Bodinnick:
It wasn’t just fun and games for Rebecca, however. Gwendolyn was intrigued by the RNLI rescue boat, which was having an open house. (Rebecca wasn’t too keen on this opportunity.) The RNLI is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and they are responsible for all sea rescues throughout the United Kingdom. They also employ all beach lifeguards. The girls are well-schooled in beach safety, literally, because the RNLI visits the public schools in early spring in order to educate the kids about water safety. We were just at a beach last weekend and the girls knew where it was safe to swim and where surfers would be. The program appears to be working.
We headed through Plymouth to Devon and our next destination, Beesands. This map shows the location of our inn, my field site of Hallsands, and the three hikes that we did while there.
Beesands is a small, seaside village that is very close to my field site in Hallsands. In fact, it is just a short one mile walk down the South West Coast Path to get there. We stayed at the Cricket Inn,
a pub at which I’ve eaten lunch several times in the past.
I knew that they had rooms available and we decided to give them a try. As you can imagine, the pub has a cricket theme. Our room didn’t have a number, but was instead called ‘Lords‘ after a famous cricket pitch. Even our room key had a cricket bat on the keychain.
Our room was excellent. It was extremely clean and comfortable, sporting en suite facilities and separate bedrooms for the parents
and the kids.
We decided to wind up Rebecca’s birthday with a walk to Hallsands. Both Beesands and Hallsands lie on Start Bay, which is an extremely scenic stretch of the English coast.
Although we were walking there, the girls and I couldn’t resist and ended up getting in a cross country run both directions. It is an ideal place to run – it’s scenic and the path is quite smooth.
The girls were able to do some wading in the water, but they weren’t too fond of the gravel beach. A funny thing about Beesands, Hallsands, and another area, Slapton Sands, is that there isn’t any sand at all. They are all gravel beaches! The girls still enjoyed themselves.
We were even able to bury them in the gravel, which they loved.
We had a nice dinner to round out Rebecca’s birthday celebration. Suffice it to say, however, that we will long remember how slow the service was. Poor Rebecca was too tired to order her birthday dessert and had to defer to the next day! Rebecca rounded out her birthday with another of her favorite activities – reading in bed.
Christine and I were excited about our plans for the next day. Seven years ago we were on this same stretch of coast for Roland’s and Maria’s wedding. The day after the affair, they had a picnic at one of their favorite beaches, Maceley Cove. This is a gorgeous pocket beach that is surrounded by sheer 300-foot cliffs. Plus, it is only accessible by the South West Coast Path or boat. We were looking forward to our return, and as an added bonus, we were going to be met by Roland, Maria, and their daughter, Rosa.
It was a beautiful day, and because we had a short drive to the trail head in East Prawle, we decided to do a longer hike around Prawle Point. It also helps that the girls are now excellent hikers. We never thought we’d see the day, but now the girls say “Five miles? No problem!”
The approach to Maceley Cove started off relatively flat, but soon gave us a glimpse of things to come. Notice the arch on the end of Prawle Point.
We followed the coast path to the west, and the terrain gradually became steeper.
The wildflowers also became more prominent, especially the bluebells that were at their peak.
There were, of course, many walls to climb and many stiles to traverse,
but this picture should give you an indication of the landscape.
Maceley Cove is the beach in this picture. It has to be one of my all-time favorite beaches. We’ve had nothing but good times there.
Christine was quite happy to be back.
The last bit of the walk looked more like the Rocky Mountains than coastal England,
but our last view of the English Channel prior to our descent to the beach reminded us where we were.
The girls had a great time at the beach, as usual. They were happy to see sand rather than gravel. Gwendolyn loved digging in the sand – she’s become an accomplished sand castle builder.
Rebecca loved jumping in the waves. She had her fun-loving aunt and uncle to join her in her crazy desire to swim in the English Channel in April. Her parents enjoyed being life guards.
There are a lot of nooks and crannies to explore at this beach. Rebecca and Gwendolyn both enjoyed walking into the sea caves here. There were at least two of them. We’ve found them to be common on many of the Devon and Cornwall beaches.
All of us, kids and adults included, also enjoyed a fun hydrology project. We were trying to divert beach water in order to make a warmer pool for the kids to plan in. We were having a hard time dealing with drainage issues, but Roland, ever the Dutchman, refused to concede defeat. “The Dutch never lose to the sea!” he said. We eventually succeeded, but the rising tide undercut our dam and the whole thing collapsed. It was a fun diversion – we must have spent two hours playing in the sand on this project.
Here’s a parting shot from Maceley Cove – the re-xcreation of a picture that Rebecca and I were in back in 2004.
The next day we split into two groups. The girls were in need of new school clothes for the Summer Term, so Christine took the girls shopping in Plymouth on the way home. I took Kevin and Michelle on one more hike around Start Point, and then we headed home through Dartmoor National Park so that they could see a bit of it before they left England.
Start Point is a beautiful headland that I look at every day when I’m doing field work at Hallsands. It was a bit foggy when we began our hike, but the scenery was still nice. Here is the Start Point Lighthouse in the fog and some great geology that I won’t get into.
The South West Coast Path is once again fairly dramatic here, and the bluebells were particularly impressive along this stretch.
Here is a nice close-up of the bluebells taken by Michelle.
We rounded the headland and were greeted by Great Mattiscombe Sands. Here’s a nice picture of Kevin and Michelle in front of it,
And here is our last view of the Devon coast, the pretty beach at Great Mattiscombe Sands, scene of a March field trip that I helped with.
We left Start Bay and headed north for Dartmoor National Park. Roland, ever up for a walk, met us at the Forest Inn, the location of past lunch dates with Christine and Rebecca, and we headed out for a nice walk in Dartmeet.
Dartmeet, as the name suggests, is the location where the West Dart and East Dart Rivers meet. Dartmouth, of course, is where the Dart River reaches the English Channel. Like other locations in Dartmoor, we had to cross stepping stones at a couple of locations.
At one location we even had to cross a Bronze Age plank bridge.
It was a nice hike and a great way to finish our tour. Here are a couple more pictures of Dartmoor.
love, love, love the video!
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