We left my parents house early and stopped off at Belstone on the way, as I wanted to show Josh one of my favourite villages in Devon. After wandering around a little while we jumped back in the car and drove on, stopping off at M&S near Exmouth for lunch food, before following a road around the coast. We went through lovely little seaside towns, and some not so lovely, before stopping off at a little village named Beer.
This area is the start of what is known as the Jurassic Coast, a world heritage site famous for its geology as the ground and cliffs by the ocean are full of rock formations and fossils that were created in the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. We drove in and parked on the street, and I was just about to get out when a big bang! rang out. Something had hit the car on the roof. I got out and there was a giant seagull poo on the roof just by the windscreen. Laughing my arse off, I washed it off with a 2L bottle of water while Josh had the window washing spray on and the wipers going. What a mess.
We eventually got out and looked around. The cliffs were not particularly photogenic at Beer, but the houses definitely were! It was a very pretty little place, and we stopped at a bench overlooking the harbour and ate our lunch.
We had a walk along the pebble beach at Beer before having a little wander around the village and getting back to the car. The next stop was Lyme Regis.
Anyone who knows their Jane Austen will recognise the name Lyme Regis from the book Persuasion, where Louisa jumps off the Cobb and knocks her head. The main reason I wanted to go to Lyme Regis, however, is a childhood memory of walking among rocks and seeing giant ammonite fossils in the stones. However, I couldn't quite remember where they were.
We parked and went for a walk along the Cobb. It was so busy - it was a warm-ish Friday afternoon in June and it seemed that everyone was out. We walked in one direction, then went back to walk the other way but didn't see the rocks I was looking for. Frustratingly, we gave up because there were just too many people around, and wandered through the town, later finding out that we'd stopped just short of them and had we kept going, we would have seen them! Argh! The things you learn with hindsight. But I did grab an icecream and the town was very pretty.
We left Lyme Regis a bit after 4pm, then drove off. We found a campsite nearby but we almost missed it, as it was down a little road, then another narrow road, and was little more than a field with a demountable amenities block. The owner came by while we were sitting in the afternoon sunshine and we chatted to him for a bit and paid for the night. Camping in the UK is expensive - in a similar campsite in France, you would pay significantly less per night!