Cornish sunset

After our stopover in Somerset, we drove on through torrential rainstorms into Devon, to the north of Dartmoor. I went on back roads for a while to avoid the M5 and Exeter, which was slower but showed us beautiful wooded river valleys and ancient tracks across the hilly landscape.

At one point I decided on a route to join the main A30 which seemed to be only a mile away at the bottom of the valley lying ahead of us. This required a rather precipitous drop down a single track road, leading from a cross-roads at the top of the ridge. I couldn't see the road we were joining as it dropped so sharply, and I didn't see the sign warning drivers to be wary of skidding, which Helena had seen.

The rain was still driving down hard and as soon as I got over the ridge, I saw only a few yards down the narrow lane an oil tanker slowly climbing up the hollow lane. Of course as soon as I braked, we skidded, but I managed to stop with a consequent smell of burning rubber. This was followed by the smell of a struggling clutch, as I tried to reverse back up the hill with a very full car load, a full tank of fuel and a steep slope. As I reversed into a small space where the oil tanker could pass, I noticed a big branch of a tree about to poke itself through the car windows, so I had to stop, wind down the window in the rain and manually move it out of our way, whilst still trying to reverse uphill.

We survived, but the smell stayed and worried me. Forty miles further on, as we neared the sea, the rain finally ceased and patches of clear sky appeared in the distance above the cliffs. We then headed down into Crackington Haven, a lovely little river valley that cuts through the cliffs of the North Cornish coastline, near the border with Devon.

Our friends who were having a weekend party at their chalet, where I have stayed with them before, had yet to arrive. So we went to the small simple campsite and pitched our tent in the strong winds, and between sharp showers. The camp was only a hundred yards from the beach, slightly protected from the north-westerly winds. As soon as we'd finished, we walked down to the beach, so I could show Helena where we were. The light was failing fast and we only had time for a quick stroll to the water's edge, the tide being nearly fully out.

We walked across the hard sands and I took a few shots hoping there might be enough light for a suitable sunset blip.