For Christmas, Louise had bought us a ‘cream tea on a steam train’ experience for the East Somerset Railway which runs a couple of restored steam engines and some carriages on a few miles on disused GWR track from Cranmore which is near to Sheptom Mallet in Somerset.
Although we booked our cream tea in good time back in early May the only date available to us was the 10th August which, coincidentally, is the date of our wedding anniversary.
We travelled up to East Somerset the day before our arranged visit, having booked two nights at the ‘Old Oaks’ campsite which was about 1 1/2 miles from Glastonbury and about 3/4 mile from Glastonbury Tor. We arrived early at the campsite, the weather was good, we donned our walking boots and 20 minutes of uphill walking later we arrived at the base of the Tor.
Looking up at Glastonbury Tor, one of us ventured to the top.
Click on the link to see more images
Departing the Tor we headed for Glastonbury town, thankfully it was downhill all the way. Glastonbury is a nice old town with rather too many tattoo/henna/hippy shops for my liking. Rather than just head back for the campsite we decided to take a look at the Abbey ruins and the Abbey visitor centre.
Click on the link to see a few more images of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey.
We stopped in the town for some refreshments before heading back, OK, we went to a pub. It was a long walk back to the campsite, 1 1/2 miles, most of which seemed to be uphill, up very steep hills in fact.
The next day, after wishing each other a ‘Happy Anniversary’, we headed off to Cranmore which is where the East Somerset Railway excursions are run from. We arrived in good time to catch the delayed 11:30 train (sounds like Southern Railways, ha) and then had a good wander around the engine shed and railway yard.
Click on the link to see more of our East Somerset railway photos.
So, we spent our 31st wedding anniversary playing on steam trains in the summer sunshine of the West Country, and enjoyed a cream tea in a ‘first class’ old BR dining carriage. Superb! We followed this with an Indian takeaway for dinner accompanied by a bottle of Champagne.
All in all it was a brilliant couple of days.