Tuesday 18th Devon to Cornwall

Left the hotel in a light fog which added to the mystery of Dartmoor. A little way along the road we stopped to watch some wild ponies and one of them decided to check us out too. Stuck his head in the car window to see what we were doing.
Then headed towards the coast to Torquay. Nothing like Torquay on our surf coast but very busy and very touristy. It has a large Ferris wheel which we couldn't see the top of because of the fog. The fog eventually lifted and we continued on along the coast road. It is summer here but you wouldn't know it. The locals are perplexed, they say it is the worst season for 50 years. Trust us, we take 500 year floods to Europe and the worst summer in 50 years in England. The Met. Office was having a special meeting of its boffins today to try and work out what is going on with the weather.  Nevertheless we are making the most of it and enjoying ourselves.
Continued along the coast to Dartmouth, which is, obviously on the mouth of the river Dart. Here we stopped at Dartmouth Castle (yes we voluntarily went to another bloody castle). This was quite interesting as it guarded the entrance to the bay. They used to string a chain across the bay in order to keep undesirables out and when the ships floundered on the chain, they were bombarded with cannon fire from the castle tower. An impressive array of cannons were on display here. You have to pay for parking everywhere, here. Had to play the dumb Aussie tourist to a parking inspector because we didn't buy a ticket to park.
We then thought we had better head to our next overnight stop so plugged St Austell into TomTom and I think TomTom said to himself, "I know a short cut to the motorway". Well, I thought the roads yesterday were narrow, this was just a one lane road with hedgerows right up to the side of the cars, with only short spaces where you can manage to squeeze past oncoming vehicles. Cars are bad enough, but it's worse when a truck comes along.
Along the motorway, we side skirted Plymouth, over the River Tamar and into Cornwall.
Got to our hotel for the night and had tea and an early night. We are staying here for three nights, will do the Eden Project tomorrow, probably, then we will go to Redruth for three nights.