At the start of August I pulled out the tent once again, this time for a trip with my Mum, Kath.

After finishing work and having an early dinner, we filled the car with hiking kit and headed down to Exmoor to go camping.

We stayed at the wonderful Moor Wood Campsite on North Hill in Minehead.

I spent a lot of my childhood camping at this site, and even though it has changed owners since then, it still gave nostalgia and excellent camping vibes.

We put up the tent in the last of the daylight and then enjoyed a hot chocolate before bed.

You can’t go camping without a fry up breakfast.

We had eggs and veggie sausage baps which we hoped would fuel us for our big adventurous day ahead.

Over breakfast we discussed where we wanted to hike, agreeing that we wanted to walk from the tent and into Exmoor.

We decided we wanted to revisit some of our favourite places, including Horner Woods and Selworthy, so after a bit of route plotting using OS Maps we agreed on our 26 kilometre adventure that lay ahead.

First we journeyed through the heather on North Hill, passing both Exmoor ponies and cows, and onto Selworthy Beacon.

From the Beacon we descended down Bossington Hill via Lynch Combe which delivered fantastic views of Porlock and the coast to Hurlstone Point.

Passing through West Luccombe, we arrived at Horner and ascended up Rey Combe to the Flora’s Ride Track on Ley Hill for a lunch stop with a gorgeous view across the moors and of Dunkery Beacon.

We followed Flora’s Ride Track for a short while where we bumped into a cyclist and two dogs who came bounding over to us to say hello. The cyclist was actually a bit distressed as it turns out only one of the dogs was his and that the other had been following him for about 10 mins and he couldn’t find the owners.

Without any signal, or any clue of what to do, we gave the dog some water and continued on our journey. As we said goodbye to the cyclist, the dog then decided to follow us for a while. We concluded that we couldn’t do anything without signal and as it didn’t have a collar with a name tag on or contact details we continued on our route which took us back into Horner Woods.

As we reached the river, the dog suddenly disappeared and we hoped that he caught scent of his owners or where he was and found his way home. Side note: when we did get signal later in the day we checked on Facebook pages and groups for Exmoor and couldn’t see any posts for a missing dog, so we hope he found his way home.

Reaching the river was the part of the walk I was most excited for, as there is a lovely little Wild Swim Spot by one of the footbridges.

To my complete delight, Mum agreed to get in with me (which if you know my Mum, you’ll know that it’s a rarity she’ll get into the cold).

We had a lovely little dip and swim. The water was beautifully clear and I spotted a few fishes in there.

After the refreshing dip we followed the footpath that follows Horner Water River and ended up at Horner Vale Tea Rooms for a cuppa tea and a slice of delicious homemade coffee cake.

From here we followed public footpaths through farmland and past Holincote House to Selworthy. Sadly we didn’t make it in time before the tea room closed…not that we needed another slice of cake!!

Then the climb began!

We followed the hill back up to North Hill via Selworthy Combe.

I think we would’ve been a lot slower up the hill in the heat if it hadn’t been for the number of flies buzzing around. We were quite keen to get away from them so we flew up the hill pretty sharpish!

Then, we enjoyed the walk back along the top through the heather, past some more Exmoor cows and back to our lovely campsite.

Our walk totalled at just over 26km with 725 meters of height gain, and a duration of almost 9 hours so we were pleased to take our walking boots off and sit down!

Following a much needed shower we cooked up a Spaghetti Bolognese (the bolognese was pre cooked… sadly I’m not that good) which went down a treat.

We then had a Purvis family camping classic dessert: A Jamaican Ginger Cake with custard.

We then played a couple of games of The Mind and Codenames before sleep beckoned us.

On the Sunday, we got up and enjoyed some porridge before waiting for what felt like forever for the tent to dry following a very dewey morning.

We then headed to Stogumber Station for a cuppa tea with my Dad (as this is where his ashes are) before grabbing some lunch at The Rocking Horse.

To break up the journey home, we also enjoyed a short 4km walk around Bicknoller, taking in the trig point on Beacon Hill and Bicknoller post.

I really enjoyed this little camping weekend away. We had great weather and a fab adventure which is always a recipe for a fantastic weekend!