Highlights of 2017: Discovering Lundy Island

Back in May, Cathy and I had a week's holiday in North Devon. We stayed in a converted piggery - Cathy found it in the holiday brochure, told me it was the Old Piggery then read out the list of features. My response: "You had me at 'piggery'."

Not bad for a piggery

On the Thursday we took a boat from Bideford to Lundy. I'd heard about Lundy but didn't know much about it at all. I knew they had their own stamps as a money-making thing. And birds. And not much else.

The boat was fairly full. we had a seal on the rocks to greet us as we arrived. It's quite a hike up from the beach, but the island is basically a moor stuck in the middle of the sea.

But it is breathtaking. Yes, there were lots of birds, but they were a long way down the cliffs and inconveniently, puffins are really small! But we did just about see them flitting about.

One of the few buildings on the island is the lighthouse.

There is also a shop and a pub, and accommodation. But we weren't planning to stay the night and had to leg it back to catch the boat. We did have time to stop and post some post cards.

As we left a pod of dolphins kept pace with our boat for a few minutes, rounding off a magical day out. As you can see from the photos it was a blisteringly sunny day, although with a wind chill at times. However, coming home we seemed to cross a portal back into the rainy mainland world.