Picture the scene: it is the first May bank holiday in 2023. You’ve just realised you have no plans, all your friends are already busy, and you are desperate for some time in the great outdoors. You idly search the YHA website for accommodation availability. This is difficult because their search function is abysmal. You find a couple of places with 3 night vacancies. Of the list, only Okehampton is easily accessible by train. Trains are expensive but not horrendously so. You press book.
TRAVEL THERE:
Cost:
Bus Oxford to Didcot: £2 each way (at the time of travel the railway was broken because a bridge was falling into the Thames)
Train Didcot to Okehampton: super-off peak return £52.50
Additional train tickets around the Exeter area: £4.70 total
Itinerary:
Bus: 10:01 – 10.45 (37 minutes) Oxford St Aldates to Didcot Parkway station
Train; Didcot to Reading: 11.04 – 11. NB this was the first super-off peak train of the day
Reading – Exeter St Davids
BREAK JOURNEY FOR FUN
Exeter St Davids – Okehampton: Hourly, 45 mins
Return: 9.25 – 9.50: Okehampton to Exeter Central (additional ticket £1.30)
WALK FROM CENTRAL TO STARCROSS (via many stops for food and beverages)
16.32: 16.45: Starcross to Exeter St Davids: (£3.40 additional ticket)
17.15 – 19.00: Exeter St Davids to Reading
19.05 – 19.20: Reading to Didcot Parkway (delayed service)
19.32 – 20.21: Bus: Didcot Parkway station to Oxford High street
FRIDAY
The train journey to Okehampton is a bit long and annoying, particularly given the need to get a bus between Didcot and Oxford. I therefore decided to break my journey both ways in Exeter St Davids. I travelled on a workday, so I spent the train journey reading papers, arriving in Exeter for a working lunch at the Exploding Bakery (and old fave). I spent the rest of the aftUpload an imageernoon working in the public library, before walking back to St Davids to get a connection to Okehampton. The wifi on the trains is not reliable, so I made sure to have enough work to do offline (in my case, reading papers and coding).
ACCOM
The Okehampton Youth hostel is right next to the station (cross over the footbridge, or via the road for stepfree access), so ultra convenient for travelling by train. The first night I was there felt like a ghost ship! I hardly saw any other guests, and the common areas were very quiet. During my stay there were no meals offered, and although there were plenty of snacks and drinks to buy at reception, it was staffed very infrequently. You can check in advance whether breakfast/dinner will be offered, but it is a 15 minute walk to the pub/chippy supermarket.
Hostel facilities: a small kitchen, with a big dining area. I chose to prepare cold food to avoid conflict with cooking. There is decent fridge space but no non-fridge storage, so I kept dried food in my room. There are two communal areas, one games room with table tennis/table football and pool and some sofas, and another with more sofas and a large table. These both have a view of the station, but only 2 plug sockets. The bedrooms are quite cosy (dark!) with the classic bunkbeds. Again very few plug sockets, but individual lights over the beds. There is no storage (including no lockers under the bed), which wasn’t an issue given I only had one roommate, but was a bit awkward as I was travelling with my work laptop. On my first night the other visitors were all male or had booked private rooms, so I had a 6 bed dorm to myself. The remaining 2 nights a number of families arrived, as well as another solo woman who joined me.
For breakfast/lunch the Granite Cafe (co-located with the bike hire shop) and the Bulleid Buffet at the railway station are both options. The station cafe opens at 8 with full service from 9 Monday to Saturday. I opted to head to Lidl (Co-op and Waitrose are on the same street) and stock up on food for my stay. The YHA sells alcohol at reception, so you aren’t supposed to consume your own on site, but as reception was barely open during my stay I didn’t feel too guilty buying a local beer at Waitrose. NB: the YHA did not provide any condiments and there was no storage for a shared shelf (i.e. no oil, salt, spices) so I elected to buy materials for a salad.
SATURDAY
My original plan was to hike, but the forecast for Saturday was atrocious. I instead hired a bike from Granite Bikes, and cycled along the granite trail to Lydford. Bike hire including a helmet and lock was £20, and I had the bike between 9am and 4pm. The granite trail is a great cycle path – all bar a very small section is tarmacced – and offers views of Dartmoor, 2 viaducts, and lots of options to stop for refreshments or walks off the trail. Unfortunately it looks like the heritage train from Meldon is no longer running. The cycle to Lydford (the end of the off-road trail) took about 1.5h. I then headed to Lydford Gorge (National Trust, entry £10) for a walk along the river and waterfall. This was very impressive! The tearoom was also a great place to warm up after a misty cycle, with a good selection of cakes. When I visited the path was being repaired, so I couldn’t complete the full circular route. Instead I had to cycle an extra mile to the waterfall entrance. Repairs should be finished soon (good because the hill is steep and there is no pavement!). Bike parking was available at both car parks, and ordinarily there are tea rooms at both entrances too.
After my walk I cycled back to Lydford and headed to The Castle for lunch, which was excellent. Lots of local produce, a fire burning on a gloomy day, and welcoming to walkers and cyclists. I had plaice with samphire and Jersey Royals, followed by affogato. Yum. Post lunch I wandered round the castle and the church yard before the cycle back. At Meldon I took a detour for a walk to the reservoir – 5 years ago it was packed with families and I had a great time swimming. Now there are signs marking it as private property and dangerous to swim, so I just had a look. I returned my bike to the shop by 3.40, then spent the evening relaxing in the hostel.
SUNDAY
With the weather looking slightly more promising, I headed to Dartmoor for some Tor bagging. I combined a couple of routes I found on Komoot to piece together a route up West Mill Tor/Yes Tor/High Willhays with Belmont, and return via the river Oke. This was great, with nice views, plenty of scrambling up the Tors, and the return by the river was really beautiful with lots of wildflowers. The ticks were out in full force (I checked every stop and removed about 10 over the course of the day). I was out for about 7.5h and enjoyed a very generous cream tea at the Granite Way cafe (£6 for 2 scones, a huge amount of clotted cream, 2 small jars of jam and a latte). This walk was never too far from Okehampton (7.5km at the further point) and there were a number of points where I could have shortened the walk/skipped summits if I had needed.
MONDAY
The original forecast was dire, so I had planned a slow start and maybe lunch in Exeter before heading back to Oxford. HOWEVER luck was again on my side and things had improved by the time I woke up. My legs were too tired for more hills, so I decided to have a walk along the Exe. I continued on the train to Exeter Central to reduce my walk (buying an extra ticket), then headed down to the Quay for coffee and a brownie at the Bakehouse. This was a nice location by the harbour, but I couldn’t find any customer loos! Quayside is great, there are many places to eat and drink at all times of day. Again, I wasn’t sure how tired I would be, so I planned a walk which I could alter on the fly if I needed to bail. The path along the Exe is one I walked about 5 years ago, and is a very pleasant cycle/footpath. For much of the walk there is a separate bit for pedestrians, which I find much less stressful than full shared use. The views over the water are lovely, particularly as the walkway is elevated.
I made it to the Double Locks in time for a lime and soda and escape from a spring shower. This pub has lots of indoor and outdoor seating and is very popular with walkers and cyclists. Understandably it gets very busy in the summer! Once refreshed, I pushed on to The Turf, another old fave. The location is amazing – jutting right out into the Exe, and the food is also reliably excellent. There is a decent amount of room inside, plus loads of outdoor seating, and it is only accessible by foot, bike or boat! I had a leisurely and delicious lunch with a book, overlooking the very misty river. Rather than doubling back, I decided to continue on to Starcross and catch a train back to Exeter St Davids for my connection to Oxford. This part of the walk is not as nice as the bit before – about half is on-road, and overlooking fields rather than the water. At Starcross you can catch the ferry to Exmouth, or continue on to Dawlish.
I had a 30 minute wait for my train to Reading – there was an indoor waiting room with chairs and a bar counter with plug sockets. It’s good to see this, as the outdoor seating can be brutal (indeed it was raining pretty heavily by the time our train arrived). Having refused to pay £5 for a rail replacement bus between Didcot at Oxford, the public bus option was scheduled to leave literally as our train arrived (integrated public transport system this is not). As the next bus was not for an hour, and involved a change (and second ticket), I originally planned to get the X40 between Reading and Oxford. However! Train delays worked in my favour, and I hopped on a delayed train passing between Reading and Didcot that meant I arrived in time for the connector bus to Oxford.
Overall review: a great trip! Visiting multiple places over the course of one trip made the annoying train connections a bit less painful. It was great to visit some old haunts and see them thriving. Could only have been improved by a left luggage facility at Exeter St Davids (I’m not sure my work laptop and 750g of leftover oats needed to come on a 10mile walk).
Adventures of a Mathematician 