At the beginning of September, we bears were taken on holiday by Polar and Grizzly. They were going to stay with our friends Aunty Ann and Uncle Derek, who adopted Waverley and arranged for him to join our hug last Christmas, so he was very keen to meet them. Hanley, Endon and I had met them before, when they lived by the beach in Cornwall, but they have moved to Somerset now.
Cosford Bear stayed at home but the rest of us travelled down to Somerset. Aunty Ann and Uncle Derek were very pleased to see us, and had tea and cakes waiting when we arrived, so soon we felt very much at home. Waverley was delighted to see a picture of his steamship in Uncle Derek's study.
On our first full day with them, Grizzly said he would like to go to see another steamship called Freshspring. One of the people mending it is Mr John Puddy, who I met when Polar and Grizzly were invited to spend a day on the Thames aboard the little steamboat Duet.
Polar said it would be difficult to fit all of us and her cameras into the Bear Bag, so suggested we organise into smaller teams of bears to go on adventures. The other bears said I should go, as I already knew Mr Puddy, and take Waverley (as he is named after a steamship). We decided Langwathby should come too, in case we saw Grizzly's old RAF base at Chivenor.
Grizzly thought Freshspring was in dry dock at Appledore, which is in Devon (but not too far from Aunty Ann and Uncle Derek's house), so Uncle Derek drove us over there (through some very nasty traffic jams because a main road was closed) only to find that the boat had been moved back up the river to Bideford.
We decided we would explore Appledore before going to look for our boat. It was a lovely little town, with pretty coastal cottages and a harbour full of small boats. Polar carried us in our bag most of the time but we were allowed out to say "Hello!" to a window full of Stuffie friends.
While our human friends had a pub lunch, we watched the boats in the estuary, and were very excited to see the RNLI lifeboat. It wasn't going very fast, so we think they were training rather than rescuing anyone, but we all waved and cheered.
Grizzly pointed out Chivenor, on the other side of the estuary, where he spent some of his RAF time when he was young. There are no planes there now but you can still see the hangers, through binoculars or a telescope.
Then it was time to visit the boat. Grizzly told the volunteers working on it we were Mr Puddy's friends and asked if we could come aboard, and they said we could.
One of the volunteers started showing us around. Imagine how thrilled we were to find a whole crew of small bears down in what had been the human crew's quarters!
"There's a lot of work for us, even though we're not going to sea yet," they told us. "So we need lots of snacks and lots of naps."
The bunks certainly looked very cosy, at least for small bears, though they would have been quite small for humans.
Another of the crew bears showed us the original plans of the ship, which used to take fresh water out to Royal Navy ships in the Mediterranean Sea. It had huge water tanks, but the plan is to convert some of this space into cabins for passengers.
We were allowed to meet the ship's Master who, as you can see, is also a small bear! He has a very smart cabin indeed. He is very proud of his ship and pleased with the work the humans are doing to it, although he hopes they will hurry up and get her seaworthy.
We were carried right up to the bridge of the ship, where we saw the compass and the wheel, and we had a marvellous view of the big road bridge across the Torridge.
Then it was time to go down to the engine room. By this time, Mr Puddy had arrived on his bicycle, so he could tell us all about the ship's engines. As you can see, these are also kept clean and properly oiled by a team of small bears!
The boiler is just like the one on the Daniel Adamson steamboat we saw on the River Weaver.
Mr Puddy and his friends want their boat to do trips and special events too, but they also hope to use it to encourage human cubs to learn more about engineering, old and new, so they encourage local schools to visit and do lots of community events.
We were sad when it was time to leave our new bear friends on Freshspring but we didn't stay sad for very long, as Uncle Derek drove us back across the big bridge to see a very small railway.
This was the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, which runs a little stretch of line from a station at a place called Woody Bay. We were just too late to have a ride on the train but we did see the last one coming back to the station.
Once all the passengers had got off and things were quieter, Polar let us out of our bag so we could run down to the engine sheds for a closer look at the engine.
"Hanley and Huddlesford will be very jealous," said Langers. "They love steam engines, and these are proper little bear-sized engines!"
We loved the little station too, although Waverley was dsappointed he couldn't get any chocolate out of the machine.
Once the little engine had been put away in its shed, it was time for us to set off back to Aunty Ann and Uncle Derek's house, and to see what the other bears had been doing while we were away.
We said goodbye to the sea and the little railway and Uncle Derek drove us back across Exmoor, with Polar navigating. It looked quite wild country, with high moors and wooded valleys where we thought there might be wild bears, although Uncle Derek says not.
"I wonder what we'll do tomorrow?" said Langers.
"It will be Hanley, Huddlesford and Endon's turn to have an adventure tomorrow," I told him. "We mustn't be selfish bears; it will be our turn to stay at home."
And Huddlesford will tell you what they did in another post about our holiday soon.
You can find out more about SS Freshspring here: https://ssfreshspring.co.uk/
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