Honiton Carers enjoyed a further 'Connecting You' 'Walk & Chat' trip on Wednesday 2 May.

We went to Dawlish this time and spent a wonderful afternoon taking in the beautiful River Walk with all the ducks, geese and swans including the famous black swans. Sadly the sun decided not to come out despite (Honiton blazing in sunshine all day). However, the lovely walk and fabulous refreshments we later enjoyed in Annie's Tea Room definitely made up for the lack of sunshine.

We have now completed 5 of 6 planned walks, the last one being to Axminster on 17 May. It has been incredibly interesting to use public transport to all these destinations, starting with Axminster, Exeter, Sherborne, Salisbury, Dawlish and finishing off with Axminster later this month. 

We are incredibly grateful to DCC for awarding us this grant and to SWR "Try the Train" scheme for giving us a trial run to Axminster. These trips have benefitted 40 carers and some loved ones too.

It has been a great opportunity to learn how to travel with assisted travel, buy group tickets, using the machine for parking and checking the displays for times and platform of the required trains, even changing trains and platform with loads of steps to negotiate at most stations.

We are hoping this will enable the carers to have the confidence to use public transport outside our group in the future. The Carers have made many new friends, seen places for the first time, many of which they wish to return to, and had peer support throughout the whole experience.

We can highly recommend other community groups trying both schemes - I am sure you will have as good an experience as we all have.