Dunster Castle

I dragged everyone out today despite everyone being grumpy and tired due to lack of sleep after daughter no.2s sleepover last night. (Why do they call them that?) We came here to Dunster Castle, which strictly speaking is in Somerset not North Devon, but if you're in the neighbourhood...

It took us an hour to get here, but the scenery is lovely on the way. It's a National Trust property so we got in free with our card, just before it runs out. The reason for coming today was that they were having a Teddy Bear's Picnic with a special event for very brave teddies. When we arrived we were the only ones picnicing, but other soon joined us. After lunch our teddies were feeling brave so we took them over to the zip wire and got them harnessed up. If you look carefully at the photograph you can just see the blue rope coming from the castle roof down the green below. All three of my daughters sent their teddies to the roof and one by one they came zooming down the zip wire. My nearly-sixteen year old wanted to leave her teddy in the car, but when she wasn't looking he sneaked into the picnic box. Daughter no.2 (she with lack of sleep) got very worried when her teddy wasn't quite heavy enough to make it down and needed a helping hand. All three teddies were awarded certificate for bravery.

After that excitement we calmed things down a bit with a wander round the castle and grounds. (Mr Lion was so exhausted he had to go for a lie down back inside the picnic box.) The inside is typical National Trust, lots of roped off rooms, portraits and things you can look at but not touch. We did that fairly quickly, then we looked at the gardens, nice in the sunshine, explored the crypt where there are supposed to be ghosts, and looked at the batcam to see some cute bats stretching their wings.

It was an OK visit, not sure I would have liked it without the teddy bears, plus, they have no cafe.