South Devon

I have been off air because I have had a spell at home. The weather has turned and the clocks gone back and I have been moving along the south coast in fits and starts. I had great weather along the Devon coast: it was so beautiful, the sun shining and the horizon indiscernible between the blue of the sky and the sea. The village of Aveton Gifford, close to where I met the swan man, is charmingly Devonian – I half expected to see Miss Marple come strutting round the corner.

From there the road to Hope Cove leads down to a sweet narrow bay with two beaches protected by a headland called Bolt Tail. In the village shop I bumped into the people from Poole I'd had coffee with at Burgh Island who, like me, felt the urge for an icecream. (This is an urge I have had for too often as I have driven around Britain – it has become a problem!)

The Kingsbridge estuary, Salcombe

There is a carpark above Salcombe but I had been advised that I would probably be able to get into the small one in the centre of town and that it was opposite a pub with wifi. That was all true, it's right by the water, and I had to shoe-horn Baa into a tiny space next to another campervan. I walked around the town which is lovely and has a large water frontage up the west side of the large Kingsbridge estuary. I just caught the end of the holiday season – mainly 'seniors' and young couples with toddlers.

Salcombe is very middle class - women with loud voices talking to men in shorts the colour of bricks - and shops like the Salcombe Coffee Co, White Stuff, Fat Face, Jack Wills - they're all there!

When I came back to collect my laptop from Baa I was alarmed to see that the camper I had hemmed in had a disabled badge in the windscreen, but by then Baa was hemmed in on the other side. I went to have tea in the pub and use the wifi... and when I came back an hour later, the camper next to Baa had gone. I did some nifty reversing in order to extricate myself and a woman waiting for the space (at a safe distance) congratulated me on my efforts!

Blackpool Sands, South Devon

I was heading for Dartmouth and had a wonderful drive alongside Slapton Sands. It's a stunning stretch of coast – apricot sand with clefts in the cliffside dropping down to sandy coves - a lovely beach called Blackpool and the prettiest Devon village called Stoke Fleming.

Burgh Island

When Jane left from Plymouth I decided to head for Bigbury-on-Sea. I found the campsite on a hill above the village, looking across the water to Burgh Island. The Burgh Island Hotel, ultra art deco and gleaming white in the late afternoon sun, was built in 1929 and was popular with Agatha Christie and Noel Coward and other such luminaries in the 1930s and 40s. Today (the website tells me) it is popular for weddings and parties and themed events for people who like pearls and cocktails, nostalgia and comfort.

Back to that other iconic, white place to stay .. Baa wasn't in quite such romantic and sophisticated surroundings. The campsite was in a great position and had (very) basic loos and showers. There were three other campervans, and two caravans and I parked next to an elderly combine harvester. There had either been a hell of a party the night before or the dustmen were on strike, but either way the wheelie bins were groaning under the weight of bottles and beercans.

Burgh Island Hotel from the campsite

The charming farmer came in the morning to be paid and said the hotel isn't open to non-residents which was a shame, as I wanted to do a recce for Fiona – and because I'm interested. Fiona sent the hotel an email.

The tide was low and I walked across (when it's higher a tractor with huge wheels takes guests over). I had coffee with four very nice people from Poole Harbour at The Pelican Inn which is owned by the hotel and at the bottom of its drive. We watched black RangeRovers chauffeuring guests to and fro through the electric gates and down across the causeway, and it felt very Dickensian! I got through the gates behind one of the cars and the lobby was full of hung-over thirty-somethings checking out after a wedding the day before, so the fearsome manageress had her hands full. I was just able to ascertain that she hadn't received an email from Fiona, so I got no further and can only say that the lobby is spacious, art deco and has a navy blue carpet.

I drove from Bigbury to Hope Cove along a 'tidal road' which crosses the Avon above Aveton Gifford. The estuary was crowded with birds: Canada Geese, Mallard, Widgeon, gulls and White Egret. I parked to watch them near a man binoculars. He had a mane of unkempt hair and the smiliest brown face with bright blue eyes shining out of it.. and he loves those swans! He said Timothy White and Rosalind had two cygnets (probably the foxes got to the eggs) and how Timothy fought with Toby who, with wife Janet, has five cygnets. He knew most of their names. The biggest hazard is foxes – and mink. Rosalind had a nasty puncture wound where her leg attaches at the back – probably due to a fox - so he made a mash of organic oats, Ribena and vitamin c and she's right as rain now.