Torquay with G-Line Coaches 2026

Sathurday 25 July 2026. I have a break from medical appointments for a while so today we are on a coach which will take us to Torquay for a week.

Regular readers will remember that we took this same coach holiday in May 2024. We'll visit a few different places and take a few trips which will seem new to me because I went to sleep during them last time!

I'm still running that risk but nowhere near as bad. Meanwhile I can also enjoy the scenery from the coach window as we head down the M5 motorway towards Devon. Also, as can be seen from the top pic above, I have some snazzy new caps to wear in blue and beige!

Sunday 26 July 2026. Our driver has put on an unscheduled excursion to Brixham. Unfortunately the local authority has now decided that coaches have to discharge passengers and park quite a walk away down past the harbour. The legs are far better than the last time we did this holiday but I'm not up to a sprint yet and it was a full half-hour's walk in temperatures well into the 30s before we came to the harbour, having passed by the somewhat odorous charms of the local fish processing plant. Lovely...

We were glad that the first café to be seen had room to let us sit down and I thankfully wrapped myself around a cup of tea. Blimey is that me? I look like Methuselah's granddad...

Miss Franny meanwhile is making short work of a latte...

Brixham was making the most of the weather to bring out the blooms. The last time we were down in Torbay there was a water scare in Brixham.

The replica of Drake's Golden Hind No plan exist so we don't really know what it looked like exactly but someone at least wrote down the measurements so that although the other replica in London looks quite a bit different at least they are the same size front to back and across!

There were a few craft stalls along the edge of the harbour, one an old van with a somewhat less than swarthy old sea dog selling pirate-related carvings.

Monday 27 July 2026. Dartmouth. We went from Paignton on the steam train, took a ferry over the river and then a boat ride up the river and down again to where Ian was waiting with the coach. I managed to stay awake this time too...

One of Dartmouth's older buildings.

Tuesday 28 July 2026. We have a free day and get a bus to the point where the promenade sweeps off to the right. We stop at the first coffee shop - a Costa - sitting outside on the terrace. A woman comes to sit at the next table with a small dog. "She's a bit quiet..." explained it's owner, "she was bitten by another dog yesterday." But the old Burke animal magic tempts her to come for a reassuring pat and stroke. We walk a bit further then turn to walk back, with regular rest stops where a conversation can always be found.

Wednesday 29 July 2026. Our excursion today is to Plymouth, once a regular visiting place for work, but then I never got to take a boat ride along the coast and river mouth. Our tour is to sail from close to the famous Mayflower Steps, where the Pilgrims set sail in 1620 for the New World across the Atlantic.

Our boat squeezes into it's space on the jetty. And we settle down for a hour's sail.

Also that evening we went to an excellent variety show at Babbacombe Theatre, starring Steve Laister with comedy, music, magic and dancers providing a wonderful night's entertainment.

Thursday 30 July is another free day and Ian puts on a shorter excursion to Teignmouth and Dawlish. I'm afraid I didn't take any photos that day, but once back we did get on our usual table in the hotel garden which allowed me to finish this sketch of the side of the hotel.

Friday 31 July. We take a trip up the coast to Sidmouth. Now I had booked two holidays in quick succession, so that despite having to head home tomorrow, we will be coming back down to Sidmouth the following Saturday! However this particular weekend the famous Folk Festival takes place and there were many craft stalls along Sidmouth's elegant promenade and a fair number of singers of (it has to be said) various degrees of tunefulness...

We got back to Torquay and our hotel to see a procession of three or four traction engines trundling past the hotel.

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Torbay with G-Line Coaches

In May 2024 we took a coach trip, staying in Torquay and visiting surrounding places. I was just a month after having radiotherapy and probably at the peak of a horrendous throat and cough that made me feel as though I should apologise to everyone.

Sunday 19 May 2024. We arrive at our hotel, the Livermead Hotel just down the hill from central Torquay. This is the view from our window, looking south west towards Paignton on the far coast over the bay.

These days, what with a bad back, walking with a stick, cancer and side effects from half the pharmacy's stock to take every day, I've ditched taking the camera on holiday with me and make do with just a few snaps on the phone. I still take my trusty A4 sketch pad with me and there will be a couple of sketches to come.

Monday's excursion takes us to Powderham Castle, a little way up the River Exe towards Exeter, though Ian, our coach driver, wisely stayed on the roads. As we all walked under the gatehouse to be greeted by the guide and curator of the castle, a tall (well look, I'm 5 ft 4 inches.... everybody's tall...) man came out of the castle and got into a car which immediately signalled its reluctance to start. As a group we gave a sympathetic groan of support as the chap threw a rueful glance at us before going back indoors. "That was the current Earl of Devon..." the guide told us.

The fortified manor house was built c1390, not named as a castle until the 18th century. It certainly has no moat or keep, but a portion of curtain wall today contains the Rose Garden. It was the seat of the Earls of Devon, the Courtenay family, from the mid 1500s when one branch of the family, based at Tiverton, ran out of heirs and the earldom passed to their cousins at Powderham. We had a tour of the ground floor, then were released to go find somewhere to sit with relief.

After some lunch in the Courtyard Cafe, we made an early start back towards the coach park as I didn't want to be holding anyone up. On the way we spotted some picnic tables and I was able to sit and do this sketch of the Victorian gatehouse to the castle. We also saw several deer wandering about.

Our dinner was scheduled quite late for us, but that turned out well as it meant that I could have a couple of hours sleep before going down to the dining room every day. Exhaustion being another of the side effects of the radiotherapy. It did make some of the coach travelling a lot shorter than it may have actually been... Anyway once up and waiting at a table in the hotel garden whilst Miss Franny went to the bar for a bottle of Pinot (and an orange squash for me...) a loud clattering chug-chug announced the passing of three large military helicopters, two of which are seen here.

Tuesday, 21 May 2024. We leave Ian and the coach in Paignton, clutching tickets for the steam train to Dartmouth, the pedestrian ferry from the station at Kingswear to Dartmouth and then a later river cruise from Dartmouth.

Taken from the train, this is the River Dart. Our coach is coach G, right behind the engine, which is Lydham Manor, No. 7827, built at Swindon in 1950 and in use at the Dartmouth Steam Railway since 1973.

I didn't manage to get any photos of the train itself, but here's an old sketch from 2013 which gives the general idea. It added to the fun quite a bit as we passed the grounds of a secondary school where a score or more teenage girls were doing a cross country run and charged as one towards us, waving their hands. By gum, I came over all nostalgic. "Take that stupid grin off your face - they weren't just waving at you!" came Miss Franny's sobering whisper of reality...

We reached the end of the line at Kingswear and got the ferry over to Dartmouth. Failing to find our designated meeting place "The Station Cafe", we wondered agonisingly whether we had been too quick to jump on the ferry, should we have stayed on the station? No, the cafe in question was now "The Embankment Cafe". A fellow passenger, plucked us from the returning ferry queue just in time.

The usual problems with finding a public loo. Cancers and their treatments can sometimes leave you with very little warning that a loo is required. Luckily we found one shortly before I was forced to walk bent double, but then they turned out to be showers... "Toilets around the other side" said a notice so, by now slightly cross-legged, I shuffled as fast as possible around the large building to see "Toilets closed for cleaning - use toilet in the showers"... Crisis narrowly averted.

We met up with the others at the appointed time for a river cruise up the River Dart. I'm told it was very good. I went to sleep more or less as soon as we left the landing stage and only woke up on the returning journey when the sun was going to be in my eyes if I looked out over the side at the passing scenery.

Wednesday 22 May 2024. It was a free day. There was an optional visit to the indoor and outdoor markets at Newton Abbott, but we thought that might not have the sort of appeal that it might have had say in the 1950s and we opted to stay and walk into Torquay itself. The walk was inevitably a stop and start effort from one bench to another with short or long rests depending on the roughness of terrain, or wind, (yes - yet another side effect...) or degree of gradient.

We had been warned of thunder and heavy rain throughout the afternoon and evening, though in the event the rain stayed away until evening and the thunder never made itself heard. We had a cream tea in a cafe, looking out onto a tangled mess of railings and snarled traffic as the area around the harbour was being "modernised" - which usually means that any character will be drained away and a new marina full of boats that seldom move will take over...

Thursday 23 May 2024. Today's outing was to Dawlish in the morning and then to Teignmouth for lunch and the afternoon. Dawlish is where the coastal train tracks were left hanging a few years ago during heavy seas smashing their way through the supporting wall under the lines. It is also famous for its black swans along the riverside which has a very nice park alongside.

Teignmouth had a pleasant, but rather breezy promenade to walk along. The pier looked a little as though it should be visited as soon as possible before it collapsed - there was no one on the length of it at all and we presumed it must be closed, though an arcade at the entrance was open. We sat in a little triangular square (work that one out...!) near a Greggs that supplied us with a warm sausage roll apiece, then made our way along the shopping street back to the Promeade meeting place where an ice cream stall provided us with something to lick whilst we waited for Ian to return.

Friday 24 May 2024. As we prepare to leave the Liversmead Hotel, the owner, his son and staff representatives gather to wave off our coach in a traditional and quite nostalgic way. Ian let the owner's son sit in the driver's seat and hoot the horn. He was made up for the day at that!

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Torquay and a Donkey

Okay, so first I need to explain something for those readers who read this blog as it is published rather than via these new-fangled index pages that I've been creating to try to make navigation a bit easier. This is the sixth article describing a holiday spent in Devon in 1993. Of course, the Internet was only just starting around then and the first five articles were written in April 2009.

At the same time I was writing about other stuff and had somehow misplaced the film negatives (this was a long time ago!) from the holiday. We were camping in Sidmouth. It is now April 2023 so 14 years after the articles finished. So, here, for the very first time - Ladees and Gentlemen! I present... the rest of this holiday with three or four articles to come over the next few days. Following that, I'll create an index page so you can read them all in proper order.

Wednesday 11 August 1993. Ooh! In a Sidmouth cafe we were served with two huge scones each, half a pound of strawberry jam, and a dessert bowl full of clotted cream. You feel somewhat delicate after that... The above is a postcard image. Clotted or "scald" cream has been made in Devon and Cornwall for generations. Legend says that Devonshire people were taught the art by the pixies. The cream should be made the day before and served with scones that have first been spread with jam. You can safely ignore any poor misguided person who claims the cream should be put on first with the jam on top.

Get ready, get set... hey! Come back! This is Torquay where we headed for the afternoon. Nice place but it was very windy and later it rained persistantly! We huddled in shelters and got fed up of shops... Well I got fed up of the shops... It doesn't take much to be honest. There's all these jokes these days about nurseries for husbands in shopping centres, but honestly, it would be a brilliant idea!

We had parked the cars in a car park up the hill to our left and were heading to the seafront and then down this road towards the centre of Torquay where the harbour is waiting to trap us in the rain and the shops wait to drag us in to feel miserable. I miss the days of toy shops and musical instrument shops and record shops with 12-inch LPs in racks stretching as far as the eye can see. Kids play with electonics these days so toy shops only cater for toddlers. Even back in 1993 new makes of PCs were starting to replace the first generation of Amstrad 1512 and 1640 computers.

Torquay harbour and marina. It's not quite started to rain yet but no-one else seems to want to pedal a boat out into the English Channel to see if we can reach Brittany before dark... So it starts to rain. Then it gets dark. It's still raining. We went to see a show at the local theatre about the life of Elvis Presley. Three actors played him at different ages. When we came out I missed the rest of the family and got soaked in the rain looking for them. They were of course still inside... Whilst they were inside and I was outside they decided to ditch the programme so I've no idea who was playing Elvis. It could have been Shaking Stevens or Vince Eager, who knows? I don't and suspect I never will now.

Thursday 12 August 1993. We spent the day at the tent mostly, playing games, flying kites, tripping over tent ropes and running off quick, hearing muffled shrieks of rage from inside the collapsed mounds of canvas... After tea we walked to the nearby donkey sanctuary. By gum it was exciting this day... I know - you're wondering why I ever restarted this series, but stick with it, it does get better...

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Torquay Weekend and The Jukebox Heroes Show,13-15 June 2008

A short series of articles about a long weekend that we took to Torquay in order to see a sixties show with John Leyton, The Honeycombs and Craig Douglas.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the index page of each holiday. From there you can follow the entire holiday or choose your favourite place or excursion. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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Devon Cream Tea

Saturday 14 June 2008. We are in Torquay, land of little petrol, due to a strike by tanker drivers, and today at least, land of precious little sunshine...

We sat for a while by the gardens, but the splendour was slightly spoiled by the parents who were proudly watching their two boys riding their bikes all over the grass and flower beds...

We moved before my annyance levels were raised far enough to snatch the kids off the bikes and wrap the frames round the parents' necks. Instead we wandered up the shopping streets and then returned to the seafront and sat looking out over the harbour.

Lunchtime arrived and I'm really, really sorry but it just had to be done... [scoff!] Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh! I knew there was another reason for going to Devon! The rebellious streak in me came out and I spread the jam first making it a Cornish cream tea not a Devon one where they do it the opposite way round, little realising that jam is much more sturdy than clotted cream.

I should point out that these photos were posed and that we knew the foodstuffs were fattening and so merely posed for the camera and then disposed of the scones and clotted cream and jam tidily. Well... I did... Fran spilt a bit down her front...

The cream tea put us on very nicely and after another short walk along the harbour we walked back to the hotel and the car and headed for Babbacombe where we were going to a show at the theatre that night.

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Torquay Weekend

Mmm! Just back from a long weekend down in Torquay.

We went down on Friday, which turned out to be the best day as far as the weather was concerned. It was after lunch by the time we got down there so we didn't have a lot of time to do very much.

We had a walk round the harbour and booked into our hotel (The Marstan Hotel, Meadfoot Sea Road, recommended). We had gone down specifically to visit the theatre at Babbacombe on Saturday night to meet up with and clap and stomp along to The Honeycombs and John Leyton in the "Juke Box Heroes" show.

More of that later! But seeing as that would be tomorrow, we went to the local theatre at Torquay to see if there was anything on that night that we could see. There wasn't...

It was now late afternoon and we went in search of some petrol to get us home. Shell tanker drivers were on strike and petrol down there was extremely scarce! There were more closed garages than open ones and in the end we had to go down as far as Paignton before we found enough fuel to get us home. We found somewhere for a meal and then headed back to the hotel for the evening.

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