Day Seven: 103 miles
It rained throughout the night but inside my tent all was dry and comfy. I woke up early and it was still raining. I was dreading a repeat of yesterday morning so I waited. At 6.30 am the rain died down so I jumped at the opportunity. Dashed off to shower and then packed up my tent. It remained dry so I could reorganise and repack all my stuff. By the time I finished there was a spell of sunshine so I had a sandwich and I made off at 8 am. As I left it started drizzling. I headed for Woolacombe/Ilfracombe. I arrived in Ilgracombe. It has changed. I was last here when I was 18 to improve my English - not that I needed it but my father didn't know that. But that's a different story. I went to look at the house I stayed at. I found it but it was no longer a B&B. The heavens opened again so I took refuge in a tea garden. Inthen went into the sister gallery of Padstow to see more of the work the assistant mentioned in Padstow. More swooning over works of art. Time to carry on with the trip. As I was setting off the sun came out so I decided to sit at the pier and soak up the sunshine. Once it clouded over I set off again towards Combe Martin and Exmoor National Park. We briefly stopped at Comb Martin. Next Exmoor Park. How beautiful. Shame the weather wasn't brilliant. Lynmouth caught my eye as I could see a break in the clouds in that direction. Driving into Lynmouth was a little scary - 25% incline and not entirely dry roads. Sheila did well. When we arrived the traffiic warden got us a place to park, that was nice. I had a wander about Lynmouth and discovered there was a cliff railway taking you up to Lynton. When I got up there it started raining again. I was drawn to an art gallery. This one was even better than the previous two. It was totally packed with goodies. More of the artists I had seen and others. One of my favourites here was Dale Bowen's whimsical acrylic paintings. I loved Kenny Darlington's mixed media work and there were so many more. Once I could peel myself away I went to have ginger cream tea. Has to be done when in Devon. Now it was high time to head back down to Lynmouth as it was getting late and I was thinking of the 25% incline. Having left Lynmouth we headed towards Porlock another 25% incline but with one rather sharp curve - even scarier but Sheila's a star. From there we went to Minehead and I was looking for a Whetherspoon's to charge my devices. They had rooms so I decided to stay for the night. More tomorrow.