Combe Martin

By the time we arrived in Combe Martin, I was almost accustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road on a two-way road that only provided enough width for a single vehicle. Jerynn and I navigated the city with relative ease, even when the slightly wider roads invited locals to park on one side of the other. But when we got to the last turn, we sat for a moment on the road with the blinker on, uncertain whether I was turning onto a road or driving off a cliff. Jerynn may have offered to get out, run across the road and make sure there was a road over there and guide me in. But we watched a truck pulling a horse trailer turn down the road and I decided to follow them.

We arrived at our BnB. (The truck and horse trailer combination stopped just ahead of us - it turns out they were delivering a piano to the BnB where we were staying. They were very relieved to learn that we were staying there, so they did not need to hurry to move or try to figure out how we were going to get around them. I can promise you that would not have worked.) I made a several point turn to back into a parking spot at the BnB. I’m not usually one to back in, but I was happy to do so because backing out in the morning would not have been a happy start for me.

Our BnB host was incredibly friendly. She offered to call the local pub and make a “booking” for us for dinner. She picked the time to give us time to settle in before walking down. It was a really great house, with several rooms we could gather in to make plans for the following day. I went down to look through the basket of maps they kept by the door and met the host again. I explained which map I was looking for and she decided that one was probably in the family jeep, which her husband was using for a camping trip at the moment. He would be back that evening, so she promised to bring it up to us. She asked why I wanted it and I explained about these graveyards I was trying to find.

I eventually returned to my room to get the information I had about the graveyards and graves. She offered to call a local friend, who had lived in the area her entire life, and get directions. The next morning, her husband gave us written instructions to the two graveyards. He also explained the directions to Jerynn, because I had gotten a late start that morning (it was the first time I slept through the night). We were able to borrow the very detailed map we had been looking for, which helped give us a better idea of the roads and directions we would be traveling. Jerynn added notes to his directions including things like “technically a right, but more like going straight”.