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This morning, the ocean pool is surrounded by a field of rocks, streaky puddles of retreating seawater clinging on in the crags. But this is not always the case in Westward Ho! Come another day, and the tide will be up to the sea wall, the pool valiantly struggling to keep its edges above the waterline.
That Westward Ho! looks so different depending on when you encounter it is part of this north Devon coastal village’s charm, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s merely a bonus. My primary reason for booking was that it was pretty much the only place on England’s south-west coasts where we could find an affordable family-sized apartment in August. As anyone who has tried visiting the UK during the school holidays knows, this is precious gold dust.
Oh, and the exclamation mark helped convince my inner nerd, too. Westward Ho! is a trivia curiosity – the only place in the UK to officially have an exclamation mark in its name.
At the ocean pool, however, the main exclamations are the mild swear words adults utter when persuaded to jump in. Even in August, the water is fairly bracing. But when you wake up, immediately throw your swimmers on and walk down to the pool, that’s the sort of alarm call you need.
For the first couple of days, that becomes our routine. However, with the tide out, my daughters propose an adventure – to walk over the rocks to the beach in their new reef shoes. I explain to the unusually rapt and attentive pair that under no circumstances should this be attempted when the tide is coming in, and then we wobble, totter and rock-hop across to the sand, scouting for flatter footholds and routes of least resistance.
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For the next few days, this pool-to-beach journey becomes the new norm. Hours are happily lost taking a pounding from the waves, jumping over them and attempting to ride them to shore. I’m pestered to buy bodyboards and laughed at when smashed from behind by a breaker while dutifully checking we’re still between the flags.
Most Australians will understand the allure of this, but in Britain, it’s a novelty. Many British seaside resorts are grim affairs hopelessly wedded to a past where cheap flights to the Mediterranean weren’t available. They provide an endlessly sad horizon of static caravans, flat brown water and scruffy cafes competing to offer the cheapest and nastiest full English breakfast.
Westward Ho! isn’t like that. It was originally a Victorian seaside resort – the name comes from the title of an 1855 Sir Charles Kingsley novel – but has morphed into more of a secret surf village. While technically on the Bristol Channel, it is spiritually on the Atlantic Ocean, tucked below steeply rising cliffs and allowed by the rest of the world to do its own thing.
There’s an unusual poetry to the place – particularly when you spot the first verse of Rudyard Kipling’s If embedded in cobblestones across the promenade. Kipling spent several years here as a teenager at the United Services College, a handy sign explains. He probably wouldn’t recognise Westward Ho! now – the fusty traces of Victoriana have been scraped off in favour of modern scallop-roofed apartment blocks and wet-suited warriors taking surfing lessons.
It’s not the surf that fuels our desire to return again and again, making it our special spot, however – it’s the village green. This simple strip of parched grass overlooking the sea is flanked on three sides by bars, restaurants, surf gear shops and an inexplicably spider-themed playground. There’s a surprisingly international flavour – a Thai restaurant-cocktail bar hybrid, a burrito truck standing next to the ice-cream van, a pub focusing on curries as well as giant pasties – but a warmly communal feel.
In the early evening, sun starting to drop in the sky behind puffin-dominated Lundy Island, the green has a magical pull that we can’t resist. After a few days, we all stop pretending we’re going to drive to a nearby town for dinner. We want to be sitting on the benches eating fish and chips as the brass band parps out the Rocky theme tune and Pink Pony Club . We want to play Uno over pints of cider in the vast Guillemot beer garden as the sky turns a raucous orange. And one of us wants to chase seagulls over to the sea wall, content in the knowledge that mum and dad can keep an eye out while finishing their wood-fired pizza on the cafe terrace.
One evening, we saunter past a row of brightly painted cottages and stumble into a gift shop in search of the obligatory fridge magnet. We emerge with a giant stuffed toy crab, and decide its name should be Ho!race. My nine-year-old seagull-chasing champion pipes up: “Ho!race can come with us when we come back, can’t he?” And we all know he will.
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