THE International Festival of Wormcharming isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when you think of a weekend in Devon.
Yet, instead of the usual quaint cream teas, that’s what I stumbled across in the village of Blackawton — and it has to be one of the most peculiar things to do.
Every year, the village fills up with folks from all walks of life, in all sorts of fancy costumes, competing for the prize of Champion Charmer.
I met mascot, Old Father Worm, over a breakfast pint ahead of the event, who told me that people had travelled from as far afield as Australia.
So I joined in too. Worm Baby Worm, my three-man team, were given our own chalked-off square of field to work with and we caught a total of six worms. Well, seven, but one escaped.
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The winning team bagged 164.
“What on earth . . . ,” I said, suspiciously. “Exactly!” they replied.
As we walked back to the pub, Old Father Worm assured me that cheating was all part of the fun. I know for next time.
I returned to my lodgings at the new Wild Comfort, a cluster of posh cabins on the tree-filled hills behind Blackpool Sands.
This leafy coastline has been in the noble Newman family’s hands for centuries, but this is the first time there’s been any proper accommodation in the area.
Through the circle window above my bed, all I could see was nature: Trees, the sea and a couple of buzzards hunting for lunch.
Owners Lou and Tim Gunstone have done their best to be as sustainable as possible — the cabin walls are made of local larch, the water is from a spring and it’s all powered by the sun.
This closeness to nature extends into the activities you can sample nearby, too.
When you’re not worm-charming, there’s also spider-crabbing.
I went down to the beach to meet 19-year-old Toby, who agreed to help me catch one for dinner.
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Summer is when they come in, so hopes were high as we squeezed into our wetsuits.
And on my final dive, I bagged a handsome fella.
I returned to my cabin at Wild Comfort feeling victorious having just caught dinner for myself and Peter Crowther, a local sailing legend and super storyteller.
While we tucked into freshly caught crab, he told me of his attempts to sail unassisted around the world.
“Then the boat started sinking, so I grabbed the whisky and jumped in the life raft,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
Learning of Peter’s tales at sea inspired me to venture to the westerly tip of the Newman land where the Start Point lighthouse sits.
It’s one of only four in England open to the public.
Then it was over to Bantham Beach for a little surfing followed by a ride on the River Avon’s “moon swoosh” current, where you bob upstream as the tide comes in.
We stopped occasionally to jump off rocks before getting out at Bantham village.
It couldn’t have been more Famous Five, though lashings of ginger ale were replaced with local ale at the Sloop Inn.
The day finished at nearby Burgh Island Hotel, an Art Deco masterpiece separated from the mainland by a sandy spit.
It was high tide, so I took the sea tractor over before being ushered into the hotel’s Gatsby-esque piano bar.
Agatha Christie wrote here and I dreamed of doing the same.
This time, though, it was croquet on the lawn, while sipping a superbly strong martini.
Then Tim called: “We’re going oyster-catching in the morning, then cliff-diving and then fishing and then we’re off in search of Devon’s last-remaining rainforest.”
Lots to do, but perhaps a quaint cream tea instead isn’t such a bad idea after all.
