Barnstaple; Friday, 12 October, 2007

The only problem with going on holiday in the UK is the time it takes to get anywhere. From South London to North Devon its less than 250 miles, but it would still take over 6 hours, and that is with all the trains running to time and making each connection.

I strolled out of work at 11:30 on a Friday morning, for the second time in a month, and made my way up to central London and then across town to Paddington. After stopping briefly for a bite to eat, I wandered down to the platform and onto the train out to Exeter

I knew that if everything ran to time I had 17 minutes to make my connection at Exeter, with the Barnstaple train which only ran once an hour. By Tiverton parkway, the stop before Exeter the train was already running nearly 15 minutes late, and then seamed to wait on the platform for ages.

Thankfully, it managed to find some time from somewhere and by the time we pulled into Exeter, to discover that the Barnstaple train left from the opposite side of the same platform, the train was only 10 minutes late.

I settled down into a seat on what I thought would be a relatively empty train, but turned out to be almost as packed at 4:30 on a Friday as a London commuter train. The service meanders its way through the Devon countryside. Officially it only stops at two intermediate stations, and several more are available on request, despite stopping at most of these and people getting off at each one, the train was still almost full when it eventually pulled into Barnstaple

My friends met me at the station and drove me back to their place, before we walked the mile and a bit back into town for the evening, taking in some of the main sights of town on the way.