Someplace New

I know, I know! We are behind on the blog and desperately trying to catch up. Our mornings have been filled with adventure and our evenings have been filled with work and it is hard to stay on top of everything. But that is certainly no excuse- you want pictures and you want them now!

Well, ok then. Here we go!

Our latest blog-worthy adventure takes place in South Devon, England. This will be our last post about the Devon area and it is our favorite one yet! Our lovely host Caroline left us  several hiking books and when flipping through we were struck by one photo in particular. There was a jagged coastline and bright blue water. It definitely didn’t look like rainy, ol’ England! We found out the beautiful place in the picture was a nature reserve called Berry Head and was located about an hour and a half away. After scoping out the routes, we found a series of buses to get us there and we were off!

With all our city-slicking back in Strasbourg, we had been loving the natural beauty of rural England. Berry Head is right outside of the city of Brixham and feels like a peaceful slice of English paradise.

We chose a hike that was just under 7 miles and took us along the coastline as well as around the city. We fell in love with the scenery and met locals along the way.

Near the beginning of the hike, a little old British lady told us there was no way we were going to make it on this trail with tennis shoes. She was in traditional English rain boots and we had all just entered a patch of brown mud that had us sliding around the trail. It was disgusting, but typical of what the trails have been like in England. She proceeded to tell us to cut through the field to our left so we could avoid losing a shoe in the mud. Sounded like a great plan except that the field she pointed us to had a gate that said “PRIVATE” with barbed wire all over it.

We actually met up with her later in the day and she said “You could have swung your leg up over that barbed wire, come on!!” When we scoffed about it being private property she said “Psht pay no mind to that sign.” She was a hoot, albeit a little crazy.

As we continued, the hike took us to two old fortresses, that are now in ruins. We climbed along the rocks and the old stone walls and played around like kids 🙂

The coastline was as stunning as it appeared in the guidebook. The town of Brixham was a cute, seaside town with a resident pirate ship, ice cream shops, and a large marina.

Even though the wind was so strong we felt as if we were going to be blown off the side, we had a really fun day trip down to Berry Head!