Exmoor is an exquisite
National Park beside the sea: beech trees, sheep, wheeling buzzards
and heather hills from many of which you look over the sea to Wales
and its mountains. Below are the most gracefully carved of steep oak-filled
valleys where rushing, bouldered little rivers are paddleable and the
red deer spend the winters, and perhaps the most dream-like rose-covered
cottage villages of them all. Porlock Vale is one of the most
beautiful farmed bits of England, Dunkery must be ascended, the
area of The Chains is wild and wonderful for walking or riding;
the Oare valley is an excellent place to take Granny for tea
with a sunset drive afterwards through the Valley of the Rocks to Woody
Bay (if you drive well). Minehead, the main town, is good
for sandcastles, has a Butlins (and a good golf course and a harbour)
and isn’t too big. Dunster is very pretty and has a fine castle
(inhabited, Nat. Trust); Culbone church, one of England’s smallest,
is worth walking to.
