Thursday 15th October

My Birthday today! Present opening happened before breakfast of course, and I had decided that I wanted to go to the Golden Hind in Brixham today.  I had discovered later on about the Smuggler and Pirate Experience not far away so I thought we'd do that too! Arrrr!



We arrived in Brixham while the weather was still overcast but it wasn't wet! It took me a few minutes to decide what to do first, but we started with The Golden Hind replica which had just opened as we had arrived.  Onboard we went and we were greeted by a pirate who told us a few general things about living aboard a ship like this one, before we continued exploring for ourselves.  The boat was small, but it was really nice, and the museum was below deck and perfectly atmospheric.  Back on deck the pirate was deep in conversation with two other visitors so I didn't disturb him - I wanted to have a photo with him so I though I'd try coming back later.

By the time we had finished the sun had come out and we went across the road to the Smuggles and Pirates Experience.  It was short but quite fun, with videos of characters based on real documents discovered from the time of smuggling.  The storyline followed a smuggler and his wife, and we had to spot gold coins along the way although I'm not sure we spotted all the pieces of eight...!

Back outside, the sun had come out and so had the tide.  We went to a restaurant across from The Golden Hind to have lunch, and afterward I managed to catch the pirate on the boat and have my photo taken with him.  I have to say he did an excellent job of multitasking photo posing and answering a question someone had about one of the flags on the boat!

Leaving Brixham, we made our way to Coleorton Fishacre and explored the Gardens.  We could have explored the  Art Deco style house as well but we were just interested in the gardens.  After we had finished in the gardens, we stopped at the cafe for a cream tea and Mathew (not me, amazingly!) managed to get clotted cream all over himself. He got in a right mess and I managed to get my scones looking pretty perfect...!

Bellies full, we went back to the house and went back out again to a pub called The Sloop Inn where we had dinner.  I had fish in a creamy sauce and Mathew had the fish pie.