After more than nine hours of travelling, we arrived safely in Exeter and were ready for a walk, a beer and a meal.

We spotted several pubs, but none of them was what we were after. Mick then spotted a place called “The Pursuit of Hoppiness” – and that caught his attention. It was a small bar with many different beers and ales on tap, as well as a selection of wines.

Check Mick out reading the information on the wall in the next photo.

After a discussion with the bartender, a brewer himself, Mick selected a half pint of ..

As you can read on the tap – it has an ABV of 8.5% and a half pint cost him £3.90.

He enjoyed it so much that he went back for one more.

Unlike most pubs and bars in the UK, it was more expensive to buy two half pints than to buy a pint, but Mick wisely chose another half pint on this occasion. We are planning to spend a few days in Exeter before we leave for Australia in just over three weeks time – so he will be better positioned to try a pint or two of this IPA. But, we have an important meeting with our new home owners and he didn’t want to look a little under the weather.

Today we pick up a hire car from Avis, the cheapest deal I could get in the UK. I have found it much more difficult to hire (reasonably priced / cheap) cars here than in France.

Before we left, Mick found a beaut pub a few steps from our accommodation that served a full, all-day breakfast for £7.95. He was very happy to finally get some well-cooked black pudding, something he could not find during our time in France.

We head to a small hamlet near the town of Chagford, in the centre of Dartmoor National Park in a few hours, to meet the animals we are to care for – and there are lots of them.