Falling for Canonteign

It's holiday time, and on Saturday the 16th we wound our merry way up the A30 towards Dartmoor and our favourite little Caravan and Camping Club Site, not far from Crockernwell.

It was a pretty awful journey up, as what normally takes us about an hour and a half to drive, took nearly four hours, due to a terrible accident further ahead of us, at Okehampton. The road was closed and traffic was stationary whilst the emergency services took charge of the situation.

Despite this, we arrived finally, and set up the caravan and put up the awning on our pitch, and then collapsed and relaxed for the evening.

On Sunday we were expecting Sally-Ann and Mike to join us on site with their RV for the rest of the week. We were very excited as we had not seen them for about 3 and a half weeks. They had been up to Norfolk for a holiday, and coupled that with a trip to the Moorfields Eye Hospital for Mikes latest check up, so there would be plenty to catch up on and talk about. They got to site at about 3pm and got hooked up and settled, and we then decided on a relaxing afternoon before we hit the roads for the sight seeing during the week.

Monday was the first planned outing, and as the forecast was good we decided to go off to Canonteign Falls, somewhere we all fancied going.

We arrived by mid morning and, having paid our entrance fee made our way up the path towards the woodlands and the tempting sounds of water crashing from the falls.

we started to climb the gently sloping pathway, and soon found it becoming a more strenuous walk

we kept coming across glimpses of small water falls and beautiful scenes through the autumnal leaves on the trees

always climbing higher and higher

at some points the sounds of the rushing water were quite loud

at some points the walk up was quite hard going, but there were some well placed benches and we soon arrived at the top of the falls, and were able to see where it all began

The drop from this water is 220 feet down to the lake, and was built by Lady Exmouth, she employed redundant miners to lay the pipework for the water and to cut through the rocks to create the leat needed to bring the water to the drop.

The view from up there was totally incredible - we could see for miles

If you click on the picture below you will be able to see the full story of the falls and Lady Exmouth's involvement in creating this Victorian Folly

It was then time for a slow meander down the hillside, back through the woodlands on the other side of the waterfall

At the bottom, as we stood by the lake, we looked back up the hillside at the top of the falls

what a lovely outing! We finished our visit here by having a rather lovely lunch of jacket potatoes with chilli and salad - that certainly filled a very big hole that all that walking had created.

As it was still early enough to do more, we headed on towards Castle Drogo. Sally-Ann and Mike had not been here before, so, as we had our National Trust passes, we thought we would visit there whilst we were in the vicinity.

Unfortunately I did not take any pictures, as I had been around last time we came up to Dartmoor, but Sally-Ann took plenty so please check out her blog for the low down on Castle life.

Whilst there we had a few laughs and a few strange moments..... we aren't sure, but did we hear a ghost talking to her mommy???? We did ask one of the room stewards who confirmed a presence but not if it was a child..... We are still wondering on the at one!

A very fun filled day.... now to rest up for tomorrows adventures.