Friday 28 October 2016

Five On Friday - Exmoor Adventure


It is time to join Amy from Love Made My Home to bring you another Five On Friday.

We have been lucky enough to get away for half term week and visit one of our favourite places - beautiful Exmoor. We are staying at The Garden Lodge at The Langbury at Blue Anchor. You might remember we sometimes stay at The Langbury B and B, this time we are self-catering in the Lodge although my son who also loves this part of the world and decided to accompany us has chosen to stay in the B and B so that he can enjoy Nigel's wonderful breakfasts!

I have to say that the weather hasn't been the best, several days have been decidedly murky so photographing the scenery has been something of a challenge so please excuse the quality of the pictures.

One of the reasons I love Exmoor is its diverse scenery, from the beaches to the bleak and barren moor tops and everything in between. Hopefully the photos will give you a flavour of this.

1. The beach: We have enjoyed our walks along the beach despite the sometimes very cloudy and murky conditions. You can see from the last few photos that we did eventually get a clearer day.




 
 













2. Walk to Dunster Beach and The Hawn: The next beach along to the west of Blue Anchor is Dunster although the actual village of Dunster is about a mile inland. Dunster Beach is very uncommercialised although it does contain a little kiosk from which we were able to obtain a hot chocolate which went down very well. It also houses some holiday chalets which remind me very much of the 1950's. Behind the holiday chalets is The Hawn, this stretch of water is now land locked but used to be navigable. It is a good place to go birdwatching and I was pleased to get really close to a heron which you can see in one of the photos below.










3. Exmoor Safari: We booked to go on an Exmoor Safari way back in March and have been looking forward to this as it is something we haven't done before. We were picked up from Dunster carpark by Andrew in his Landrover Discovery for a 4 hour trip all over Exmoor. Unfortunately it was again a murky day especially on the top of the moor where visibility was very poor. We were hoping to get a good view of the red deer but apart from a distant herd we were out of luck. I did take a photo (see below) just for the record and hopefully you can just make out the stag with his hinds through the murk! However Andrew gave us a brilliant tour and was extremely informative about the area so although we didn't see all of the wildlife we had hoped for it was still a great day. One of the highlights for me was the off-road sections which were very exciting (if a bit of a roller-coaster ride). One of the off-road sections took us deep into Lorna Doone country looking down into the Doone Valley, we then drove past Oare Church where Lorna married John Ridd. All of this has given me the urge to read Lorna Doone again, the last time I read it was when I was a teenager (many years ago)!




The deer are in this photo somewhere!








 
 

 
4. Horner Woods: Yesterday was a better day with the hint of sun every now and again. On the safari we were told about the ancient woodland now owned by the National Trust so DH and myself decided to go for a walk in the woods. Horner Woods are beautiful, especially at this time of the year. Starting off in the village of Horner we gradually made our way up through the woods with the river tumbling down over boulders at our side.
 
 
























 
 
5. Steam Trains: Blue Anchor is one of the stations on the preserved West Somerset Steam Railway and as you know my DH and son are mad steam train fans so photographing trains is always on the agenda for them. I surprised myself by taking a couple of photos too! I don't go out specifically to take train photos but these were taken as we were walking along the beach - I do quite like to see trains in the landscape setting.
 
 


 
 
I hope you haven't been too bored with all these photos, I can never decide what to leave out!
 
Have a great weekend and please go and visit Amy where you can link up to more Five On Friday posts.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

14 comments:

  1. Beautiful photos - even the train ones! I love the idea of the Exmoor Safari and those woods are just perfect. Have a great weekend. xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have such a talent for taking photographs, you have a great eye and capture the feel for Exmoor beautifully

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks like an amazing break away. Shame you didn't get to see as much as you had hoped on the safari. The woods looked amazing. A great five.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Looks like a fabulous week away despite the weather. Like the sound of the exmoor safari and the deer. Lovely photos and gorgeous autumn colour. B x

    ReplyDelete
  5. Looks as if you had a great time despite the changing weather. The safari sounds great and the beaches and woodlands look wonderful:)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Glad you had a great time away despite the weather playing tricks on you. It sounds as though you enjoyed it all, no wonder you had lots of lovely photos to share - which I enjoyed seeing! Thank you for being part of Five On Friday, hope you have a great weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Beautiful photos and it looks like you have had a wonderful break despite a few murky days. The moors look very atmospheric in the mist and the safari sounds like a great way to explore.

    ReplyDelete
  8. What an exciting time you've had! I love all the photos, great to see the beautiful countryside. I notice there's a couple of yellow houses in one of your photos, I wonder if they belong to the National Trust. x

    ReplyDelete
  9. Love, love, love steam trains. Your safari sounds fascinating.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Not boring at all, I love looking through someone else's photos! The safari sounded fun, shame you couldn't have seen more wildlife xx

    ReplyDelete
  11. Marvelous get-a-way in Exmoor. Giggled at the line-up of gulls. Beautiful fall color. The Horner Wood preserve must be gorgeous this time of year.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I always enjoy your photos, Jan--England has such a wide variety of sights and landscapes within such short driving distance! Lucky you :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm glad you didn't leave any of them out. Loved all the photos. Beautiful world we live in.

    ReplyDelete
  14. We had a week in Watchet a couple of years ago so I'm seen some of the things in your photos before (including the train!) It's a lovely area. Glad you enjoyed it.

    ReplyDelete