Tales from the rain puddle: Bank Holiday Weekend: Moretonhampstead, Buckfastleigh and Exeter

In the US we have Labor Day (or Labour Day ;) and in the UK we have the late summer bank holiday, which is the last Monday in August. While the initial reason for these holidays differs, the sentiment is the same - a last 3 day weekend before school starts. And even though we don't have kids, we're never ones to pass up a 3 day weekend.

We decided to head south-ish - not sure why, but that's what we did and ended up in Moretonhampstead, Buckfastleigh and Exeter (say that 5 times fast!).

Saturday: Moretonhampstead
Not quite 3 hours took us to the little village of Moretonhampstead and the White Hart Hotel. A very cute and quaint hotel with a resident cat! Our room was pretty spacious for this part of the world and had a funky bathroom stair you'll see in the photos. We checked in, had a nice dinner and a short walk around town (not cuz we were tired, but because it was only a short walk to go all the way around town!)

The drive was lovely except for a few dicey moments where the road didn't look wide enough for one car, let alone two! I was really glad Brian was driving.

Here are the funky stairs to the bathroom.

Walk around town. Many of the inns, pubs and houses have gorgeous flowers out front. One of the benefits of all that rain is great flowers.

This is a public mailbox - or I suppose I should say post box. I mean seriously - how cute is that?

Old church on the hill

Sunday: Buckfastleigh
After breakfast, we decided to check out the rails and ales festival which was going on in nearby Buckfastleigh. They have steam trains you can ride and at the mid-point of the route they were having a beer festival. Sign us up!

All the conductors looked like retired railway guys and were having a ball.

Scenic view from the train

I caught this one coming into the station

A good shot of the interior. Even though the one way trip was only 30 minutes, there was a cafe car selling drinks and snacks. Looked like they also run a dining car on occasion.

Here's another one coming past us while we were enjoying some ale.

The Rails n' Ales festival. Lots to choose from.

And Otters & Butterflies
Just next to the train station is a butterfly house and otter sanctuary. I know, what? We were there for the 4pm feeding and got a good look at all the otters currently at the sanctuary and heard their sad histories and saw their antics. They are all rescue animals - either from flooding or road accidents and the guy who runs it rehabilitates them, but they rarely go back into the wild. A fun little stop.

These were the smallest Asian otters. So cute. They also had some North American and European otters, which were bigger.

This woman's boyfriend bought her the opportunity to feed them! It actually looked pretty gross - they eat raw fish, hamburger and baby chicks. Ewww. And they bite if you're not quick enough with the food!

Butterflies are really hard to photograph!

Also saw some emerging from their cocoons.

Monday: Exeter
Monday was a gorgeous day - perfect temps, sun and occasional shade - absolute perfect weather to try out the Granite trail bike path near Exeter. We were able to rent a tandem and got back on the bike. We estimate it's been about 6 years and believe us, it felt like longer. But we did all right and had a great 10 mile or so ride and some beautiful scenery.