Devon is a home away from home for former Otago Daily Times sports editor Brent Edwards and his wife Liz, who was born in the small town of Axminster and whose parents live in the seaside resort of Exmouth. But one of the highlights of returning to Devon is the opportunity to savour the rugged delights of the neighbouring county of Cornwall.
One of the advantages of being based in Devon is that my other favourite English county, Cornwall, is a short drive away over the border.
And yet, after crossing the Tamar Bridge, the contrast between the two neighbouring counties could hardly be starker.
One hour you are admiring the soft green rolling fields and thatched cottages of Devon; the next there is the harsher, more rugged terrain of Cornwall and the stone buildings with their slate roofs.
We had our first holiday in Cornwall, in St Ives, back in 1974 and have been back since to enjoy breaks in Perranporth, St Agnes and Penzance.
And yet we have still only scratched the surface of this historic but, by British standards, sparsely populated (535,000) county.
It is a county of character and characters, the setting for numerous television dramas, perhaps the best known the Poldark series written by Winston Graham.
Cornwall is dotted with disused tin-mines, the last of which closed in 1998. The landscape is also dotted these days with windfarms, which are much less of an eyesore than I thought they would be.
Tourism is a major earner for Cornwall these days as British and overseas visitors flock to soak up the sense of history in every nook and cranny, the unspoilt beauty and the surfing opportunities.
Padstow is one of the most attractive fishing villages in Cornwall but, since international chef Rick Stein opened restaurants in the town, it has become almost too popular for its own good and even parking can be a challenge.
Not far up the road from Padstow is Port Isaac, or Portwenn as it is known in the television series Doc Martin. Like many Cornish villages, the streets are steep and narrow, the views are spectacular and the clear, bracing air is good for the lungs.
While it is preferable to explore Cornwall at leisure, the beauty is that it is easy enough to drive from Devon to Land's End and back in a day.
We were pressed for time on our most recent visit and our time in Cornwall was limited to 30 hours, and yet that was long enough to become reacquainted with old haunts and to be stimulated by new sights.
We left Exmouth at 9am and soon we had driven through Plymouth and were having morning coffee at the market town of Liskeard.
The next stop was Mevagissey, which has long been a favourite of ours. The quaint little fishing village is surrounded by steep hills and one of the memorable sights, on fine summer evenings, is of hundreds of people perched on seats around the harbour eating fish and chips, for which the town deservedly has an enviable reputation.
But it's lunchtime so we settle happily into our seats overlooking the harbour and the fishing boats and enjoy another of the traditional delicacies, the Cornish pasty, with our salad.
We reach Penzance by mid-afternoon. It's the major town in the west of Cornwall (the population is about 22,000) and our room at the Lugger Hotel on the seafront has sweeping views, to St Michael's Mount to the left and Newlyn to the right, while there are regular ferry services to the Isles of Scilly.
Penzance is the home of the pirates in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, the Pirates of Penzance. The hotel name has a nautical theme (and the floorboards tend to roll from side to side!) but it is full of character and magnificently comfortable.
It's a place, like so many in Cornwall, which lends itself to story-telling. Hence the novel, Penmarric, by Susan Howatch, is set in Penzance, as is The Chequer Board, by Nevil Shute.
The famous little villages of Mousehole and Marazion are just a few minute's drive away but we don't venture to Land's End, the windswept southern tip of England which these days is very much a tourist trap.
We set out to explore Penzance on foot and soon come across the headquarters of the Cornish Pirates Rugby Club, which last year almost gained promotion into the premier league of English rugby, a remarkable achievement for a town of its size.
Penzance is busy but far from overwhelmed with holidaymakers (the weather is average and it is the week before the school holidays) and at least some of the locals have not tuned in to the benefits of tourism.
I pop into a small shop to buy one of the national dailies but the owner is packing up for the day and has no inclination to serve me.
''We close at 5.30pm,'' he announces defiantly.
I glance at the clock on the wall. It's 5.15pm.
''Anyway,'' he adds, as he follows my gaze, ''I've been up since 5am.''
I leave the shop, paperless. Sometimes you just can't win.
The sun finally makes its way through the cloud in the afternoon and we celebrate with a beer in the outdoor bar of the Lugger before we find a fish restaurant for our main meal of the day. We are not disappointed.
The next morning we are on the road as we have to be in Exeter by 4pm. Our first stop is the lovely little village of St Just. We walk around for half an hour and make a mental note for the future. It's worth another visit.
We have morning coffee at Zennor and continue on through Hayle and Bodmin before, by common consent, we stop at the Jamaica Inn for lunch.
It's long been a favourite of ours, though we have never stayed there to test whether its rooms are indeed haunted. It's set in the middle of nowhere on Bodmin Moor and is the title of the novel written by Daphne du Maurier.
It's unashamedly touristy these days but the food is good - England is surely the home of the best ploughman's lunch - and Liz spends her quota of time in the book and souvenir shops.
Soon we're back in the car (always rent a smaller car if you are in Devon or Cornwall as it is much easier driving in the very narrow lanes) and back in Devon, our quick escape to Cornwall at an end.
We could have gone to Cornwall by any number of routes. We could have driven down the west coast via Port Isaac, Padstow, Newquay, Perranporth, St Agnes and St Ives. Or we could have travelled over Bodmin Moor to St Austell, Truro, Redruth (where the All Blacks used to play when they made their long tours of Britain) and Camborne.
The beauty of Cornwall, apart from its obvious beauty, is that you never run out of exhilarating gems of little towns and villages.
The names roll off the tongue - Looe, Polperro, Falmouth, Fowey and many others. Each has its own place in history, which is enriched with the passage of time. Cornwall is indeed a place for those who revel in the past of one of England's most celebrated and mysterious counties.
