Mel, Tab, Mewla & Cathy - Their Exmoor Holiday

Chapter Two


   "Well, I'm going to start on these gorgeous-looking sandwiches." Cathy said, reaching out and picking up a greaseproof paper packet. I grinned and looked at Tab.
   "Hark at this, coming from the girl who just an hour ago said she didn't.............."
   "Sandwich, Mel?" Cathy interrupted me hastily. I laughed and took a salad sandwich.
  Lunch was a gorgeous meal. The hotel staff had really made a wonderful picnic for us.
   A little while after we finished lunch, we all took off our sandals to go for a paddle in the river. At the edges of the river, the water was only about a foot or so deep, which was just right for cooling off. I had suggested to Tab earlier that it would be a good place to swim, and she had agreed with me. We went along the waters' edge for a few feet, until we found a relatively flat part of river bed, with not too many sharp rocks.
   "Oh, that's amazing!" Cathy said, as she waded in. The water came up to her knees and she walked slowly about on the pebbly river bed.
   We all waded into the river. The pebbles were smooth and rounded, so they felt really nice under our feet. Mewla went nearer the middle, so the water was lapping at the bottom of her tiny shorts.
   "Come over here!" she said to us. "It's lovely!"
   We didn't quite see what happened next, but before we knew it, Mewla was on her bottom in the river, with the water flowing round her chest. She had somehow slipped on a smooth rock, and uttered such an unearthly shriek that Tab and I clutched onto oneanother to stop ourselves from overbalancing.
   We burst into fits of laughter and Cathy staggered through the water to help her up. Mewla laughed it off and splashed Cathy with a few handfuls of water.
   "Well, you may as well take off your shorts and swim now." Cathy said to Mewla, who had paddled to the bank and was trying to wring the water out of her shorts. "In fact, we all could. We've got our bikinis on."
   "Well, I'm game." I said, and I took my pale blue denim shorts off and laid them on a nearby rock. I was wearing my tie-dyed bikini, which is my favourite.
   Tab was wearing her maroon bikini, Mewla was wearing her cream and blue one, and Cathy was wearing her brightly-coloured checked one.
   Is was so hot that even as we waded into the river in our bikinis, we didn't feel in the least bit cold.
   "Wow - this is wonderful." Cathy said, swimming around. The water was about five or six feet deep in the middle of the river, so it was just about the right depth for swimming in.
   "We'll have to make sure that we don't swim too far down the river." Tab said. "Because there is a strong current where it flows over those rocks and down onto the lower part of the river bed. If we got swept down there we'd injure ourselves on the rocks."
   "We'll be fine here." I said, kicking out with my legs.
   The weather seemed to get even hotter as the day wore on, and we even felt baked in the water.
   "Hey! What's that?" Cathy suddenly uttered an exclamation. She was floating on her stomach a little way away from us, and was looking down into the water.
   "What?" Tab said, swimming over.
   "I saw something glinting on the river bed." Cathy said. "Oh, blow - I've lost it now!"
   Cathy carried on looking down into the water for the thing she had seen, until she exclaimed again.
   "There it is!"
   She duck-dived under the water and swam down to pick up whatever it was. The water was about five feet deep. I looked down into the water and saw her reach out her slender tanned arm. She picked up the object, and surfaced with it clasped tightly in her paw.
  Tab had swum back to join Mewla and I, who were still a little further down the river.
   "Look at this!" Cathy called us. "A beautiful ring!"
   She held up a ring in her fingers and we all waded over, as fast as we could, being up to our thighs in water.
   "Oh!" Mewla slipped again and fell down into the water. We laughed.
   "Oh, wow!" I took the ring from Cathy and examined it. It was a gold band ring, with a pretty blue pattern engraved on it. It looked old and worn, but I couldn't tell if that was genuine age and wear or if it was made to look like that. "It looks really old!"
   "It was probably dropped by a tourist." Mewla said, slicking her hair back. "It looks like the kind of thing you would get in one of those medieval gift shops in Dunster village."
   "Finders keepers!" Cathy laughed, sliding the ring onto her slim finger.
   "Tsk!" Mewla made a disapproving noise and flung a pawful of water at Cathy, who immediately flung some back. This, of course, escalated into a full water fight, and we shrieked and laughed and stampeded around in the river as we splashed, shoved and tickled each other.
   In the end, we got fed up with swimming and soaking each other, so we waded out of the river and sat in the sun to dry off. Our bikinis dried on us in no time, and we took five minutes to re-touch our make-up before Tab went back to the shady bank to fetch the picnic packets. We then sat down in the long grass, in the sun, and leaned back to munch on some snacks.
  "Well, I could get used to this every day!" Cathy beamed. "Just think - we have several weeks of this to look forward to! I hope the weather stays like this!"
   
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   The day went well. All we did really was sit in the grass or paddle in the river. We were all getting gorgeous tans.
   In the end, at about four o'clock, we started to pack up our things. Mum and Dad had said that they would pick us up at five. We put our shorts, hats and sunglasses back on, tucked all our things into our straw bags, then slipped on our sandals. Although it was late in the afternoon, it was still as hot, and we were all still far too hot.
   We set off through the long grass.
   "Well, it's not been a bad day." smiled Tab, as we strolled.
   "Indeed." Cathy said. "Especially when I found this." she stretched out her slender paw and the gold ring flashed in the bright sunlight.
   "Let me try it on." Mewla held out her paw. Cathy shook her head.
   "No - I'm not taking it off."
   "Spoilsport." Mewla pretended to whine.
  We walked on. It took us about three quarters of an hour to get back to the carpark. There were still a few cars about, as some people were still walking. The shop was still open, so we went to get some ice-creams.
   "What shall we do tomorrow?" I asked, as we sat in the hot sun.
   "I was thinking that we could go pony trekking across the moor." Cathy said. "I've heard that there's an excellent farm on the moor at Winsford that does trekking and hacking."
   "Well, I was thinking that we could go to the Valley of the Rocks, at Lynton." Tab said. "Your Mum and Dad are going to Lynmouth tomorrow, Mel, so we could easily hitch a lift. Lynmouth is only a few miles away from Lynton."
   "What's the Valley of the Rocks?" Mewla asked.
   "I was reading about it in one of the books in the hotel." Tab said  "It's this gorgeous little rocky cove and beach, and there is never anyone there, because the only way down to it is down a really narrow, almost vertical cliff path, which turns in hairpin bends all the way down - the cliff is about two hundred feet high. The beach is all soft sand, and there are gorgeous rocks, the water is warm and crystal clear, and there is a waterfall running down the cliff at the back of the beach."
   "It sounds amazing!" Mewla said. "Let's go there instead of trekking! We can do that the next day!"
   "You're on." Cathy said. "I'll do without the saddle sore for a day."
   
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