Grand Western Canal – Devon

[ Photo Gallery # 89 ]

The Grand Western Canal provides wonderful level walks and bike rides along its nature-adorned tow paths.  It extends for eleven and a quarter miles from the basin in Tiverton, East Devon, through quaint and charming villages to Lowdwells, near the Somerset border.

Perhaps the greatest attraction on the Canal is the much-loved horse-drawn barge based at the start of the canal in Tiverton.  It is a beautiful wide beam, 75-seater horse-drawn barge and the same boat has been taking passengers for trips along the canal since 1974.  The Devon section of the GW Canal is now a designated country park.

My photographs below were taken on a beautiful summer afternoon when I undertook a trip on the ‘Tivertonian’.

I have covered some of this information before on one of my blogs, which can be viewed by clicking on: ‘The Canal Horse’

The video below was made by The BBC, ‘One of the Last Horse Drawn Barges in the UK’ was filmed on the Grand Western Canal in Devon UK.

 

 

The ROCK

Triassic Red Rock at Exmouth, Devon … Photograph WHB – 2010

Offcut of the Jurassic coast
Orphan of the distant cliffs
Detached from its mother lode
Now an imposing sentinel
A majestic rock
A Triassic red rock.

Descendant of the Devon Cliffs
Ancestor of a million pebbles
Reliving its life in isolation
Facing the diurnal tides
Confronting Poseidon’s rage

Andromeda’s chains now long cast off
This pedestal of the shoreline
Now serving a valued purpose.

Harbouring shore life
A haven for gulls
Cosseting kelp
Succouring seabirds
Sheltering shellfish
Anchoring limpets
Its periwinkles
Feeding on its algae

Minimally diminishing with every tide
Yet serving its constituency
With resolution.
And promising
Its adherents
A fitting future.