Over the Hills and Through the Woods

Location: Okehampton, England

This is a much-belated post for Monday, as Jazlin and were a bit off the beaten path and away from WiFi. As always, thanks a bunch for all your comments! I've done the best that I can to put up new posts, but as you will read it has not been particularly easy.

Monday morning we made it into the castle ruins of Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. We had started out the day with another proper English breakfast at our B&B (complete with baked beans - still not sure if those belong at breakfast), and then, after waving off a polite offer by the owner of our B&B to watch our backpacks for the day, we were off!

...Naturally, we regretting not taking him up on his offer, because Tintagel actually involves quite a bit of steps, walking, more steps, and more walking. It is also rather steep at some points. We did stop to take a break up on the grassy hill above the castle ruins, where we took a bit of time to draw, write in our journals, and eat a can of sweet corn I had purchased back in Wales.

After Tintagel castle, we went (read: hiked laboriously up a hill) to the modern town of Tintagel, where we found a pub with free WiFi and sat down to find and book our next hostel (for some strange reason we didn't want a repeat of the previous night) and to update my blog. We were there for about a half an hour while I tried unsuccessfully to do so. Then I checked the bus timetables. The last bus to Okehampton (where we were going next) left in a half an hour from Camelford. The bus from Tintagel to Camelford left in two minutes. We had to be on that bus.

Grabbing our stuff and flying out of the pub, Jazlin and I speed-walked to the bus stop (which we knew the location of from our damp trudge the night before) and arrived just as it pulled up. We had made it! In fact, we made the next bus in Camelford and arrived in Okehampton at about 6:30pm. Granted, we hadn't booked a hostel yet. So with an unfortunate sense of deja vu, we meandered around Okehampton looking for accommodations which could accommodate our budget. We were not having much luck; even the tourist information center was closed.

But then, lo and behold, there was a little wooden sign. And the sign said "Youth Hostel." With a mixture of anticipation and trepidation (we had no way of know whether they still had beds available, after all) we followed the sign... through a park, alongside a river, around a strip of residential neighborhood, up a hill, under a bridge, and up another hill. Then we had arrived!

It is worth noting at this point, that Jazlin and I had both woken up that morning with a sore throats. By the evening, our affliction was rapidly deteriorating into full-blown cold. When we finally got to the hostel we probably looked about as bedraggled as the previous night (though less damp!) and were really praying that it would not be full. It wasn't! But we still had to go back into town to scrounge up some dinner, and by the time we returned there wasn't time for  blog post (plus we were both tired after doing so much walking. Being sick probably didn't help that either.)

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment! Remember, more comments = quicker posts! (I wish...)