Newton Abbot

Ah! This is my first blog post and I thought it would start off with something travel related as I have a few holidays planned for this year. Most of the posts might be travel related but will also try and include various other posts throughout. So, lets start off with an Easter break away to Devon.

Every year my family and I always try and plan a Easter trip away as well as our annual summer holiday. Mum always picks some of the best places to go away and relax and this year she planned Newton Abbot in Devon. Even though we didn’t stay much around the local area, it was still nice to get away before all the revision kicks in during the exam season.

We stayed at Finlake, Chudleigh which is a small part of Newton Abbot. Before arriving we planned to go horse riding and zip wiring and try and make it as fun as possible but most of the facilities were shut :(. This way we now had plenty of time exploring the surrounding areas.

As we only had two days there before we went home, we spent our first day travelling round little towns such as Dartmouth and Torbay and all the different beaches around as well as the piers! Due to the excitement of mum, we also travelled across the River Dart via Ferry (which was only less than two minutes across). This day consisted of the most travelling around Devon, apart from the journey to get there too, as we wanted to make sure we see everything within the local area in little time as possible.

First we went to Blackpool Sands in Dartmouth before heading into the main centre of Dartmouth. We wandered round the little town, got some lunch and headed to Torbay where we spent most of the afternoon. As we couldn’t find much to do throughout these towns apart from walk along the pier and grab something to eat, it was still nice to not really do anything and just explore different towns. We headed home, as well as ordering a little Chinese, and stopped off at a pub before heading home for a quiet and early night – not like us at all!

On our last day, we had our annual Easter egg hunt throughout our lodge in which I get very competitive with!! There is always a race between the three of us, as Mum hides them from us, and I always get accused of cheating! When the hunger games finished and the winner (me) has eaten most of the winnings, we slowly got ready to go on one of the walks around the site. It lasted around 50 minutes where we saw horse riders and many different facilities which also take place within the camp such as making dens out of sticks and archery.

When we came back, we headed out again to Paignton as we didn’t get a proper look around the town the day before as there wasn’t anywhere to park. We spent most of the afternoon there as we didn’t have to rush back for anything. It was ‘late lunch’ when we arrived and we wanted to grab a quick bite to eat before looking round the stalls. Burger van it was! Stopping in a sweet shop made my day as there’s nothing better than blue laces.

After the long walk around the shopping estate, we headed towards the pier where we spent most of our coppers. As I haven’t been to a pier in YEARS I wanted to make sure we spent a lot of time there as we don’t get to do it often. Even though we won 100 tickets, it wasn’t worth queuing up for a small prize of sweets.

As we stepped outside a small funfair was there and I tried to convince everyone to go on the Waltzers as they are one of my favourite rides! But, mum and ol convinced us all to go on the dodgems which I have never been on. So, as it was 2v2, it turned out to be the funniest experience trying to hit mum and dad! Afterwards, we had to go on the Waltzers. WE HAD TO! Despite feeling sick for the remaining journey home, it was worth the fun and laughter.

Sadly, Monday came. The day which meant that we were travelling home, as well as the rest of the sodding country, and the day before everyone else went back to work (lol sucks for you). We took a slow journey back by stopping into Teignmouth for breakfast and a short time looking at the pier then making our way to Dawlish.

Dawlish is where we spent most of our time as there was more things to explore including a better arcade in which I got dragged out of after 5 minutes. We enjoyed our last look at the beach until next time when we head abroad in July and made our way.