Monday 30th April

Today was a travelling day; we had a slightly different start in that the mini bus had a wheel arch that was hanging a bit loose, so Phil had to go back to the hire garage and get it fixed at 8am.  Anyway we were off by about 9am, picked Walt up at Bere Regis; coffee stop near Honiton, and on to Fingle bridge near Drewsteinton where we had a 4 mile walk along the river and back.

We decided not to do a bit of the main walk as it was a long drive to Wembury and back to the house, so had lunch and then a leg stretch along a most beautiful river.
After the walk we drove to the house along some very thin narrow lanes, so Carol had a taste of driving conditions for the next couple of weeks. 

The houses are lovely, and we’ve all got settled in.  Sainsburys managed to find us and delivered everything except milk, so we had 4 pints which will have to do til we can get some tomorrow. 
whilst have tea and cake outside (it was actually sunny and quite warm), Walt was saying that their shower needed tying up and needed string or a cable tie (the owner had only just noticed) - amazingly Lynn said ‘ooh I've got a cable tie’  we shouldn’t have been surprised as she is the keeper of the rucksack with everything in.

So just enjoying a pleasant evening ready to start the main walk tomorrow. 

Getting ready for the off.

Just setting up this blog, - we missed last year and quite a few people commented that they hadn't seen one, so here we are again.  This year we're walking about 115 miles from Wembury near Plymouth on the south Devon coast to Lynmouth on the north Devon coast.  This takes us over Dartmoor and Exmoor.  I somehow don't think we will get a dry walk this year; last year we walked the Dales way in Yorkshire and we had a completely dry walk; not a drop of rain anywhere!
We've got 2 cottages at Drewsteinton which is about half way on the walk.  The mini bus is waiting to bus us there tomorrow.
This year's players are - Tim  - chief map reader; Walt - also a chief map reader and pie shop finder; Pat and me - in charge of menus and food; hopefully Sainsburys will find us tomorrow evening otherwise we'll go hungry! Stuey - ski instructor in case of snow on the moors; Jacqui - keeper of the camera (we missed her last year); Alan - head chef extraordinaire;  Lin - keeper of all things we need in the ruck sack including the umbrella!;  Steve W - keeper of the kitty for all cups of tea and cake on route; Steve Y - finder of cottage and other organisation, so we can blame him for anything that goes wrong; and not to forget Phil and Carol - keepers of the mini bus who will take us everywhere.

I'll touch in again tomorrow with all the gossip of the first day.
Alison x