The 2nd South West Day Tour took place on Sunday, 28th September, in the most glorious weather.
This was an added bonus for the 6 cars and 12 participants that lined up for the Quantocks Tour starting at Sheppy’s Cider just outside Taunton.
Few people even know of the Quantocks, but it was the first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty created after the Second World War.
The 43-mile route had been planned and organised by Nigel Edwards to take in most of this spectacularly beautiful area. Yes, there were some very narrow lanes and extremely steep hills to negotiate by our intrepid members in cars varying from Jonty and Rose Hollinshead’s Aston Martin Vantage cabriolet, Bill and Sue Dornan’s Austin Healey 3000 Mk111, Nigel Edwards’s Alpine A110, Doug Thring’s BMW 635 CSi and Miles and Jane Preston’s splendid 1933 Rolls-Royce 20/25 Sedanca de Ville.
The route involved climbing two long, steep hills and one extremely steep descent into the quintessentially English village of Crowcombe, right in the heart of the Quantocks, where we had a hearty Sunday lunch at the very popular Carew Arms.
Amongst the numerous places of interest that we passed by were two notorious hangman’s gallows, strange and very spooky wiggly trees (often used in film sets), stately mansions and picturesque cottages, as well as the one where Wordsworth and Coleridge lived in Nether Stowey. And the eye-catching site of the huge Hinkley Point Nuclear power station and its massive cranes starkly standing against the shores of the Bristol Channel. Many glimpses of Exmoor and the Welsh Black Mountains above Port Talbot, as well as the wonderful red earth of the recently ploughed fields.
This was the English countryside and agriculture at its best, and all bathed in sunshine, lighting up the thousands of beautiful deciduous trees whose leaves were starting to turn golden.
A fabulous way to exercise our cars, meet new and old friends and discover a glorious part of England.