If Hawaii had the Middle Aged Americans, this quiet little town in Devon has the Grey Haired Brit Brigade, with a penchant for getting their kit off. I had never heard of Budleigh Salterton until I was forced into looking for a home based seaside break due to Covid restrictions, which has essentially grounded me for the past year. Hence I’m kicking off 3 months of freedom with a mini UK Tour…

Travel companion for the first week is Karo. We share a love of the great outdoors, long walks and recently discovered natural swimming with the aim of one day joining the elite group of hardcore old ladies who swim every day throughout winter in the Hampstead ponds. In fact it took Karo (a Polish native) to open my eyes to the fact it is possible to swim in the UK seas – we recently took a day trip to Whitstable where I couldn’t believe she had packed a swimsuit and was intending to actually go in.

Fast forwarding a few weeks and a 3.5 hour train journey from London, we arrived in this gorgeous little town, our cute two bed apartment sandwiched between a cake shop, a chip shop and opposite a pub – after trying all three we came to understand that everything is closed on a Monday and I mean everything. With no Uber and nothing to do but sit on the doorstep until our host provided the keycode, we realised this would be a slower pace of life than London.

The beach here was pretty quiet, with the alarmingly white, middle class population in fact proving very friendly and incredibly accommodating of us tourists who must be ruining their afternoon teas for a good few months a year. Tip – the beach is extremely stony so the £6.99 on water shoes will be the best money you ever spent and bonus is that you can feel smug watching the other visitors trying to get out of the water.

The coastal path runs in both directions along the Jurassic Coast with some stunning views. We walked the hour to Exmouth’s sandy beach but soon turned around when we met the hoards of families setting up camp for the day and it dawned on us that this was actually a Haven Holiday Park.

New Experience Number 1: My new love of cold(ish) water swimming means I decided to get up at 5am for a sunrise swim (not difficult when the seagulls wake you at 4am everyday with their terrifying screams) where I quite literally had the bay to myself. Arms are no longer going numb in the water although the temperature was apparently a warm 17 degrees so I have a way to go yet.

We seem to have spent half of our time here wandering around looking for somewhere to eat – the one and only fish and chip shop needs to be pre-booked online to secure your spot, which we only found out when everyone around us on the beach was enjoying their dinner and we couldn’t get any. Luckily the owner took pity on us and gave me a child sized portion of chips on the sly.

It felt like cafes and shops were disappearing and reappearing randomly at different times of day on the high street, with the elusive Slice of Lyme constantly changing it’s opening hours to taunt us with the healthy food we were now craving. The very friendly Feathers pub let us in on the second or third attempt where we had a meal and a beer although I soon realised this was not the kind of place where you ask what lagers are available or for your nachos to come without cheese.

New Experience Number Two: if you can’t beat ’em, join’em – down on the nudist beach. Just don’t go too far down the beach where these naughty old folks are getting up to a lot more than airing their white bits if the condom wrapper floating in the otherwise pristine ocean and the note given to us by a very old, wrinkly man named David is anything to go by! Disclaimer – drawing not true to form; either David is a very fast artist indeed or he had pre-prepared a stack of them to hand out with both his landline and mobile to be on the safe side. He had the nerve to return an hour later to declare ‘if you don’t want this I will take it back’, providing me with the opportunity to give him a piece of my mind about harassing women to which he ‘apologised profusely’ and backed off down the beach, speedos in hand. The nice couple next to us advised sticking to the more family friendly other end of the beach next time but applauded our bravery.

New Experience Number Three : the water is so clear and calm here that we decided to have a go at Stand Up Paddle Boarding (SUP). I didn’t expect to even be able to stand up but in fact it was surprisingly easy, the only tricky bit was staying upright when turning around and not panicking when the beautiful blue jellyfish floated by – there are actually A LOT of jellyfish in the waters, a fact which we tried to deny up to this point even though the locals were clearly wearing wetsuits for a reason. Apparently only a couple of varieties of jellies require actual medical attention, although as Karo pointed out if you happen to be on the naturist section of the beach at the time then they probably all do 😳

On our last day a storm was coming in and we spent a good few hours mesmorised by the tide as the waves built up. Having experienced the stronger current this morning, we could only watch in slow motion horror along with the rest of the beach goers as a woman looking to be well in her 70s with nerves of steel casually ventured in, only to be immediately knocked over face down onto the stones. We all held a collective breath before she emerged from the waves and went back down like a domino a few times before strolling back to her husband like she does this every day.

Eyes now open to the beauty of my own country and mind blown by the opportunity of swimming in UK seas, it was all too quickly time to pack up and move on – next stop Wales…