It was a long but straight forward drive down the motorway from Warwickshire into Devon, stopping only at the Gloucester Services. If you aren’t familiar with motorway services in the UK, you don’t know what you’re missing. They are rest stops which are more like mini-malls with petrol stations, toilets, eateries and a shop or two. At the very least they’ll have a few places you can buy food – be it a quick sandwich or a coffee – and a magazine for the road. You’ll usually find a small supermarket in there like an M&S Food or a Waitrose. In essence, even the standard ones are good places to stop with everything you could need to break up a long drive.

And then you’ll find the motorway services that go a level beyond this. The Gloucester Services on the M5 is perhaps the best example of this. Not just your standard coffee shop and lunch spot, the Gloucester Services also contains a massive farmshop and canteen. With local produce like breads, pastries, fruit and vegetables piled high, it also has a large selection of food, drinks, gifts and homewares. It was very hard to know what to pick for lunch, let alone what else to buy from the shop!

After this glorious comfort stop we headed into the city of Exeter to meet up with some friends. Exeter is the county town of Devon with a thriving cultural scene. It’s yet another pleasant English city with a university, bustling city centre and lots of history. Sounds a lot like York!

In Exeter we went to the Quayside area which was buzzing with locals sitting in the square and enjoying the sunshine with an ice cream or pint of beer (sometimes both!). Exeter Quay, as the name suggests, sits right on the Exeter Canal and river Exe. After enjoying some Devonshire ice cream ourselves we had a lovely walk along the river, and how could we resist taking the kids on a pedalo? Unfortunately there weren’t enough seats on the pedalo for everyone so I took one for the team and volunteered to browse the local craft shops instead. There were quite a few of these individual arts and crafts shops lining the river, selling gifts, trinkets and woodwork. Pottering around these shops was almost as much fun as the pedalo, or so I’m told.

We finished our afternoon in Exeter with a drink in the beer garden of the Topsham Brewery where the kids excitedly tried to climb a tree until the manager quietly suggested we should leave as we were disturbing the ambience of the beer garden. Mental note: British pubs are not always quite as child-friendly as their Australian counterparts.

As we left Exeter, saying a fond farewell to our friends, we drove down into Teignmouth. Teignmouth is a seaside town in South Devon where we would be spending the next three nights. As we drove into town we were treated to some brief but glorious views over the bay. We checked into our Airbnb, which was a modern and spacious apartment right in the centre of town, and ended our day with a walk through the town to the Ye Olde Jolly Sailor pub. Dinner was yet another excellent steak and ale pie.

Coming up…time to explore Devon!

Previously…knights and nostalgia in Warwickshire.