And home…

 

And so the last day of a wonderful week dawned - and a beautiful dawn it was as we already saw in the Big Skies post. This is a slightly different shot though - taken when I first realised that the lights in the Black Shed had not been turned on to spoil it! The electricity in Lundy is switched off overnight most of the time, so often the lights there get left on and come back on when the power does! 

First task on departure day is always to get cases packed and ready to go - those then go outside your property ready for collection by quad bike and trailer ready to be taken to the jetty ready to load on to the boat. After that it’s the self catering accommodation basics - a quick tidy round, any crockery and pots and pans replaced where we found them, and then time for a last cup of tea before at 10am we leave and head for the Tavern to set up base camp for the day.

Not too many people doing the same on this occasion, so we were able to grab our favourite table. That then means people can come and go as they wish during the day, always leaving someone at the table to look after the bags travelling as “hand luggage”. S is generally quite happy to sit and read, and M also sat tight for the morning, B does his own thing but was also about for much of the day, leaving L and I to head out for last walks - I opted for the east side path again, with glorious views, and somewhere I could keep an eye on the boat’s progress across too! (It’s always nice to know when the day trippers will be arriving!)

Along to the Quarry then, with a drop down to the bottom path at that stage…

 

…you can just see it in the shot above. More fantastic views of course - I’d forgotten quite how stunning the views from that path are, one to add to the list for our next visit! 

Eventually the path naturally curves back up to the top of the island - I elected to walk back towards the village on the main track for a while before cutting across to the middle and up to the Old Light, no time to go up to the top on this occasion, but just past and back to the Tavern. 

Couldn’t resist stopping for a few minutes to watch the lovely Lundy Ponies heading across the field though! 

Final day lunch is cheesy chips in my world - it’s practically the law, and the Tavern kitchen does excellent ones! Then time for a bit more sitting/chatting/reading before it’s time to settle the Tavern tabs from the week - mine came in pretty much where I was expecting which was good, with an additional spend in the shop that I paid as I went along. All within budget which I was very pleased about, and all paid on the cashback credit card for a few pennies back too! 

The final walk down to the jetty then, this time to board the M S Oldenburg (fondly known as the “Old and Buggered”) for the trip back. Thankfully as the pictures show- on far calmer seas than the way out! 

Unusually the crane was still up when we arrived - meaning more was to be loaded. Usually this is all done ahead of the arrival of passengers to line up ahead of boarding so clearly there was a last minute item to go aboard - sure enough the tractor trundled carefully down with a wooden crate slung from the forks - this turned out to contain a seal pup which had been abandoned by Mum and needed to be taken to the mainland. Crate and pup - wrapped in cooling wet towels - were carefully craned aboard and then we were able to board too. 

Annoyingly we had to wait for a couple of folk who thought “3.30pm at the jetty” didn’t apply to them, but once they’d rocked up at 3.55pm we were off into the Bristol Channel, making 14 knots much of the way - the crew were keen to get back - and we were still back at the other side a good 30 minutes ahead of expected arrival! We disembarked and S & L headed off up the hill to collect the cars, with M & me in charge of collecting the luggage once offloaded - first off was the seal though - quickly transferred to a crate for onward transport to medical attention..

 

Poor little thing, I do hope it can be nursed back to health. 

With luggage collected and loaded into the cars, and goodbyes said and hugs exchanged with S & B, it was time to hit the road to Tiverton Parkway where I was being dropped off - more hugs with M & L this time before they jumped  back in the car for their onward journey to Cheshire and I settled down with a pasty, a cuppa and my book to wait for my train. 

Once on the train was when things got eventful. Late running of 5 minutes at Tiverton extended as we went along, and even the 10 minutes scheduled stop at Bristol was unable to let us make up the time. A further unscheduled stop at Reading left us running very nearly half an hour behind and in spite of some high speed running between there and Ealing we still arrived at Paddington 29 minutes late.

In the meantime I had also realised that the Central Line - integral to the last bit of my journey- was suspended! The late running train would have left me reliant on the night tube anyway, and lovely MrEH was always going to be collecting me from as close to home as I could get, but in the event he told me to take the Elizabeth line to Stratford as planned and he would collect me from there - a good call otherwise my 2am arrival home would have been even later! 

A very long day and a slightly stressful journey, but still I think far better all round than the alternative late night drive back on my own. Cheaper too probably - particularly with the sharp increase in the price of diesel again recently. My Delay Repay claim will be going in for the delayed arrival too! 

Robyn