what we did at the weekend

Here's a few links that may be of interest from our weekend in Exmoor:

• we stayed at the Lorna Doone Hotel in Porlock, which in addition to accommodation facilities also has a very nice restaurant, which we made full use of.
• we also went to the Royal Oak (next door to the hotel) which had very acceptable Doom Bar and also The Ship at the other end of town which had, among other things, St. Austell Proper Job, which was excellent.
• the main business of the weekend, however, was a 12-mile walk across the northern end of Exmoor on Saturday. We got the number 39 bus from Porlock to Minehead, and then walked pretty much due west, via a quick bagging of a trig point on the way, to the top of Dunkery Beacon, which in addition to being the highest point on Exmoor at 1705 feet (520 metres) is also the county high point of Somerset, so chalk up another one to this list (and also this one). Once we'd bagged that we turned due north and wended our way back through some pleasant woodland to Porlock, and the pub.
• I remembered to take the GPS with me this time, so I have a record of the exact route, and via the magic of the newly-publically-available Ordnance Survey map data and this splendid GPX file conversion facility I can show you a map of that route here. The elevation profile is below (measurements are in metres), the top bit being the summit of Dunkery Beacon, of course.
  
  
• we also popped into Dunster on the way back home today, which has a castle, which seems to be shut at the moment, and various mediaeval remains dotted around the village.
• some photos can be found here.