Brixham to London

This was just a transition day to get us from South Devon to London.

It was a pity but we didn’t have time to explore Brixham. Just a quick look at a 1963 full size replica of the Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake’s Tudor Galleon which he sailed around the world from 1577 to 1580. This is one of the iconic ships of the age of exploration. This particular replica was made for a television series.

From Brixham we got a Stagecoach Southwest No.12 bus to Torquay Railway Station, about a forty minute trip with about forty stops, for £4.50 each. Once again it would have been nice to explore Torquay but the trains weren’t going to wait for us. I stayed in Torquay in 1989 for four days when the Wellington City Council sent me to a zoo designers’ conference based at Paignton Zoo. I also visited zoos in San Diego, Los Angeles, Bristol, Chester, London and Singapore.

But there was a train to catch. A branch line trip to Abbott Newton where we transferred to “The Cornishman” which had originated in Penzance or Plymouth or somewhere. When we boarded the train was already quite full and there were only three more stops between Torquay and Paddington, a journey of three hours. We had prepaid tickets and once again the machine recognised my credit card (you have to present the same credit card you used online to purchase the tickets) and spat us out our cardboard ticket. You can’t get a ticket from a human in the ticket office as they can only print paper tickets and a cardboard one is required to go through the automatic turnstiles. The combined train fare was £37.50 each.

We used the time on the train to write the blog post “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics”. As well as sleeping and eating our pre-purchased lunch.

We are back at the Shakespeare Hotel, for the fourth time in two years, and planning what to do for the next few days. We have three full days in London, Fri, Sat and Sun before flying out to Perth on Monday.