With all the thatched houses, I looked at Wiki and could not get a definitive answer as to the life of a roof.  It depends on the location.  They said the the ridging has to be redone every 8 - 14 years and that a thatched roof had to be reridged several times during its life, so that could mean anywhere between 25 and 100 years for the roof.  A lot that we have seen have been covered in chicken wire.  I guess that's to stop the birds removing bits for their nests.

The day turned out absolutely beautiful. It's been bright sunshine, over 25C and giving us a bit of a tan. At 8PM the sun is still shining brightly.

It took us well over 2 hours to cover a measly 75 miles to Exeter, and there was one run that was a strip of nearly 30 miles at 70 mph, so you can see how slow the rest was. That's because we were bashing our way through the narrow, tractor plus tissue paper roads and through roundabouts. They were both in proliferation today.

We are now in residence at the University of Exeter. To be precise, we are staying at Reed Hall in one of the “student's residences.” I really doubt that you would let a student stay here. It's a double bedroom with about six times the space of our bedroom, and an attached bathroom. The bathroom has a shower, full sized bath, toilet, dual hand basins and room for a double bed and dresser. It's enormous!. Also the views are spectacular. We are on the second floor, and the only downside was having to drag our luggage up two flights of stairs.

We thought we were closer to town and after a ten minute walk, went back and picked up the car. We stumbled on a parking building close to the information centre. Sheer luck! Then we walked along the old medieval wall of the city, down to the quay. The quay is a bit touristy with boats to hire and swans and ducks too feed, but not too bad.  There was a good antique mall there to browse through.

We walked back through the High Street and Lynette went off to take a few photos of Exeter cathedral and got stuck in there for half an hour. She enjoyed it so much and took so many photos. The tower dates from 1114 and the Gothic vault (ceiling for us mere mortals) is the largest in the world.

We had dinner at the Imperial pub, just down the road about a mile. It was a very good meal for NZ$40 total for two courses for us both. We sat watching the bar and it was amazing to see the volume of traffic going to the bar to order food or drinks. There were very few times when there was no queue. There were other bars and they were crowded with people watching soccer, so the turnover has to be very profitable.

The people of Devon seem to be a lot friendlier than anywhere else here. We have had at least four instances today where people have gone out of their way to be helpful to us, by giving directions etc.

I tried my radio inside the room and managed to hook one Slovak out of the mud but the conditions don't appear to be that great.

Sunny Dorset above and even sunnier Devon below.

Reed Hall

The stairs will keep us fit.

Above and Below - The Reed pond

Part of the medieval wall around the centre of Exeter.

The old Customs House down by the quay, with a pair of decent cannons.

Warehouses on the quay have now been turned into modern flats.

Exeter cathedral.

The ceiling seems to go for miles.

One of many stained glass windows.

A posh grave.

More of the ceiling.

Above and Below - Old houses overhanging the street.