Saturday 3rd July – Up early and spent a few hours rearranging our gear in the van. There’s a lot of stuff that we won’t be using much, if at all, on the rest of journey, for example the tents, sleeping mats and additional camp stools. Putting those to the front or back of the hightop in the van means that the everyday items will be more readily accessible.

With all that sorted we drove down to Polperro to see what it was like. We really enjoyed it, though again it’s obviously aimed at tourists. The place was really pretty, set in a natural harbour with steep hills on either side. Once the coach parties had left by 4pm, the town became much quieter and more relaxed. The shops were more interesting than most of the ones in Looe, and we found a couple of good pubs. The Old Mill House Inn was the venue for our evening meal and we can thoroughly recommend it (good food and friendly owner).

One downside of living in the campervan is that I can’t really have an alcoholic drink if we go anywhere beyond walking distance from the campsite as I’m the only one who can drive. It doesn’t bother me that much but sometimes it’s really annoying to find a great real ale pub only to have to order a glass of coke. Still, I’m not a big drinker and the freedom the van brings more than makes up for a few ales. We’ll just have to find more camp sites within walking distance of real ale pubs.

Friday 2nd July – The next leap forward. Onwards and Westwards! The weather hadn’t improved and consisted mostly of bands of heavy rain and cloud with the occasional burst of sunshine. We decided to push on down to the Trelay Farmpark near Looe in Cornwall. That meant a 3 hour drive through intermittent torrential rain with visibility sometimes down to tens of feet. Very scary in places, but we managed it fine and the van handled the steep climb up some of the hills without too many complaints. The site is another good one. Not too busy, a few miles from both Looe and Polperro, excellent toilet block and friendly owners.

We popped into Looe on the way to the site, but found it very touristy and a bit run down. On reaching the site we set up a disposable barbecue and cooked up a fine meal of sausages and burgers. (Washed down with orange juice to keep the vitamin C coming in!)

Thursday 1st July – More rain. Drove down to Seatown near Bridport to get a meal and enjoy the views at The Anchor pub. The meal was okay, and the views were great, apart from the continuing rain. To be fair, it did ease off a bit later on and we had a quick cliff-top walk to blow the cobwebs away.