Totnes

Home to the world's smallest castle, guarded by:

Mais ou est-il?

Fortunately, we were there on a Sunday. Le Chien seemed to be off-duty. Our Special Forces training enabled us to gain access without too much trouble to achieve our goal of overthrowing Totnes.

After scaling the castle and fighting off the inhabitants with mounds of vanilla fudge, we raised the flag of, er, English Heritage:

Raise the flag! Which flag Sir? English Heritage, of course!

Surveying the domain

The view from the top made the whole 2-minute climb worthwhile. From one side, the view down the river towards Dartmouth is spectacular:

Down towards Dartmouth

And again

From the other, we saw what seems to be a 1950s Hollywood set. All it lacked was Doris Day skipping along whilst smelling a buttercup and holding a basket:

Suburban Totnes Bliss

So I decided to get artistic with the camera:

That close-up function on the camera finally came in handy

As the altitude was starting to get to both of us, we descended (with crampons) back down to the river, to be greeted by some local wildlife:

Fairly attractive as long as you can't hear them squawk

Meanwhile the steamer was taking boatloads of neatly-queuing tourists on a day trip to Dartmouth and back:

Average age onboard: well over 75

We estimated the total number of years on board to be somewhere in the reason of 8000.

Words and Pictures © Louise Heal 2008