Our Honeymoon

intro

This webpage is a diary of our honeymoon at Anglers Paradise, in Devon - Halwill Junction, which is so good we are already making plans to go back.  If you are into fishing it is the place to have a go.

Although we didn't catch anything huge we caught loads and some unusual as well... Read on to to discover how much fun we had!

Diary

Sunday

We arrived at Anglers paradise after travelling for six hours and two minor course corrections, I suffered from a headache, we think due to dehydration (not that surprising really) so Andy and I shared a lot of the driving (I was the one to make the two tiny directional mistakes).

On our arrival we were handed a bottle of Zyg's wine by himself with instructions not to drink it before the BBQ tonight!

We went to the BBQ, with fantastic sausages and salad, plus Zyg's wine... which is the strongest wine I have ever had!! (Reminds me of paint stripper ~ or what I think paint stripper should taste like, not that I am complaining.)

We were then thoroughly embarrassed as Zyg announced to everyone at the BBQ that we got married on the previous day and handed us a bottle of bubbly, that now makes four bottles of wine in our fridge, I think it will be an interesting week!!!

Our Villa is lovely

Monday

We went into Okehampton this morning to do some food shopping and buy cider and beer.  We found a lovely little tackle shop in the town up one of the alleyways and easily managed to spend money.  On the way back to Anglers Paradise we saw a couple of buzzards playing in the wind.  My head is much better after drinking lots of water and made my special eggs on toast for lunch.

We went fishing in the afternoon at the beginners carp lake and had tons of fun...

And the fish

While fishing we saw a rat/water rat that decided to swim in the island in front of us!  After me catching two fish in quick succession I popped back to the villa to grab a couple of cans, not a big drinker I got a little tidily and while talking about a hair rig said way too loudly "I can't get it open and stick my thing in".

And then we went back to the villa and drank a bottle of bucks fizz, I am enjoying how this week is turning out!

So that 9 - 4 fish to Di :)

Tuesday

We have decided to fish on the float fishing lake today, didn't set an alarm and didn't get up early!  Here are some action shots!

The scores of today's fishing are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

We seemed to have some of the best luck at this lake today.  The views are simply amazing and its so peaceful.  I think we will want to come back again and again.

We watched a buzzard being mobbed by a flock of birds, and watched a young moorhen beg for food, there are tons of wildlife here from massive dragonflies and butterflies to birds of prey, however not a duck or swan in sight... just how we like it.

We drank Zyg's wine tonight and couldn't decide what it was made from... Andy's guessing plums!  However it did remove a layer of skin from our throats and make you gasp after every mouthful, but it did taste nice and I wouldn't turn down another bottle!

While slightly intoxicated we tried to use the spa bath... which was an interesting experience... water everywhere... didn't know how to turn the power of the spa bath down, I was rolling on the floor laughing while Andy (whilst laughing) was looking decidable like a bedraggled rat!

Wednesday

Alarm woke us at 7am this morning... didn't move for another half an hour.  as we started to get moving and chatting we realised Zgy's wine took off more that a small layer from our throats, we both had quite sore throats!

We headed into the village to buy bread, cakes and custard... and won £6 on a scratchcard!

Make our way down to Octpussy lake, the intermediate carp lake.

After throwing maggots to the obligatory robin we were soon surrounded by a dozen chaffinches and a couple of dunnocks (Andy thinks).

There are a couple of orfs cruising around our swim without a hope of catching them!  I started with one rod on float and managed to catch a couple of gold fish... at least I wont have a blank day now.

So we have moved to the mystery lake and so far its still a mystery except there are plenty of moorhens and their young, two young ones have just swam past desperately calling to their parents.  Tonight is a noisy one, they are clay pigeon shooting in the fields just beyond Anglers paradise, I hope the geese that have just flown past don't get involved.

I caught a fish out of the mystery lake... its a bit of a mystery to what it was and Andy dropped it and it rolled back into the lake so no photos!

So today was not the greatest of days, but there is always tomorrow, and Friday and next time!

As we sit here all you can hear is the sheep, the magpie, the odd small bird twittering, other anglers talking and bite alarms going off... this is idyllic... we have to come back and soon.

Thursday

Today, thanks to Zyg's kind generosity we are fishing on the Specimen Koi Lake, this is amazing, throwing dog biscuits out you can see a mass of colour bubble up to the surface and for the biscuits that have gone to far into the reads you can see some massive one slurp them off the surface... I think we will be float fishing today.

We started taking loads off the surface using various baits, here are just a few:

In total today in the morning we had seven small koi each, and then Andy had 2 koi at 1lb and 1lb3oz, and I had 4 Koi, at 1lb, 1lb5oz, 2lb and 3lb.

We then had a small ceremony to make our fishing vows with another couple, Lindsey and Stuart, who were also on their honeymoon.  We had a glass of Zyg's wine before hand.

The ceremony was great fun and took place on a raft... drifting across the lake. Some of the he words of the ceremony were roughly:

Do you promise to wash and clean your tackle and put it away after every use?

and

Do you promise to honour and obey and fish forever and a day?

It was great fun!

And then 3 glasses of Zyg's wine after and then we got a bottle of bubbly from our fridge... we don't quite remember what we caught, but here are some of the photos,

Friday

Today is the only day it rained... well drizzled really, what was worst was the wind which did unpredictable things with our bait! Most of it seemed to sail out of our swim into others... but never mind!

Our catches consisted of:

 

 

 

 

I cant believe how friendly every one is here.

This evening we went to a lovely pub up the road with Lindsay and Stewart (the other honeymoon couple), I had the best tasting lamb shank on mashed potato... I will go and have that again!

We went for a Midnight walk (at about 11:30), the sky is so clear, so little light pollution gets here we could see so many stars, more than I have ever seen before.  It was so clear we saw a satellite and the galaxies mist... I now want a telescope!

Saturday

The long drive home, we decided to take a long route home, no rush.  So first we went to Okehampton and had a wander round the Saturday market, in which we brought cakes! We then headed out towards Dartmoor.

We stopped in Dartmoor when we found a stream and decided to stop and have a wonder and lunch.  Lunch was sandwiches and half defrosted ice cream which was fantastic on such a hot day.

On the road again we saw some Dartmoor pones and had to stop.

And one decided our car tasted nice and started to lick our bonnet... then she decided that it would also make a go scratching post!

I still cant believe the view here, this was well worth the long detour!

We stopped once more in Dartmoor, just because it was so amazingly beautiful!

After Dartmoor we travelled up the M5.  While travelling up the M5 a buzzard flew just in front of our car it was amazing and further up the motorway we saw a gorgeous stag standing in a field just elegant and proud.

We drove through Bristol to pop into Sarah's for a cuppa tea (and got ourselves lost as we have never cut through Bristol before) and drove under the suspension bridge which was amazing.

 

I can't believe its over... What a wonderful time.

 

 

Old Honeymoon pages here