We’ll Meet Again – South West Coast Path Day 5

Braunton to Barnstaple – 12,000 steps

I am reunited with the Path in the morning, but it’s not the same.

I leave my B&B on the outskirts of Braunton, and pick up a muddy minor path downhill that soon brings me to the route of the disused railway line that takes the Coast Path into Barnstaple.

South West Coast Path Day 4

Ilfracombe to Braunton – 42,000 steps

Breakfast is an egg and tomato roll, instant coffee and a custard tart. I eat it on a wooden bench beneath Ilfracombe’s singular war memorial.

War Memorial, Ilfracombe

The sun is already painting the roofs of buildings a sumptuous amber colour, and burning off the early haze. Seagulls cackle loudly all around, children are walking to school.

It’s a peaceful scene and I’m reluctant to start my day’s hike. I have a long day ahead of me. Not as long a walk as Day 2, but one thing that I didn’t factor in when I planned the trip was that the legs get tired and each day’s miles feel longer. Plus, it turns out that Devon coastal miles are longer than London and south east England (flat) miles.

National Park to Holiday Park – South West Coast Path Day 3

Hunter’s Inn to Ilfracombe (36,000 steps)

My calf muscles feel like they have had tractor tires parked on them overnight. But I eat breakfast and take ibuprofen. The sun is shining and I have a shorter walk today. I’m feeling optimistic enough to wear my shorts.

I leave the Hunter’s Inn and follow the river down a narrow, green valley, accompanied by the musical sound of running water. My optimism is only briefly dented by the sight of the climb with which my day begins. It’s best not to overreact; the morning turns out to have plenty of climbing.

After the big climb up the side of Heddon’s Mouth, the bulk of the morning is spent on a grassy clifftop path, which rises and falls along a series of undulating hills like the back of a half-submerged sea monster. There are spectacular views of the coast ahead, where I can see the whole morning’s walk laid out for me.

My morning’s work lies ahead

I take a brief rest after an hour. The sun is now pleasantly hot on my bare arms. It’s very peaceful – a view of rolling hills inland, the sound of sheep in a nearby field, the low whisper of the sea against rocks far below. The sky is a thin blue, with long strands of high white cloud.

When I get going again, the great Hangman looms into view. It is the highest point on the South West Coast Path. From a distance it doesn’t look too forbidding. But I could have done without the steep descent into a narrow valley that immediately precedes the even steeper ascent up the back of the Hangman.

View from the highest point on the South West Coast Path (picture taken by tiredest walker on the SW Coast Path)

At the top, I treat myself to a sit down and some water as I enjoy the view out to sea. Then I walk down into Combe Martin.

I read somewhere that Combe Martin is the second longest village in the country (it stretches inland along a very narrow valley). That just makes me want to know which is the longest.

Lunch is egg and chips in the Foc’s’le Inn on the beachfront. The music is piped directly from the early 1980s. It’s heartening to see a bold use of apostrophes in a pub sign (although arguably there could have been a third, between the letters ‘o’ and ‘c’).

Sadly, a local cafe didn’t do so well

Combe Martin marks the boundary of the Exmoor National Park, and it’s clear that the Park is behind me as soon as I walk out of town after lunch. The Path has bored of showing me spectacular views. The route becomes rather mundane as we pass a series of campsites and holiday parks, and remain close to a busy road. We’re firmly in Holidaymaker Devon now, instead of National Park Devon. Even beyond the campsites, the terrain is more like Surrey by the sea than the wild coastline of the past two days.

The Path does its best, darting in and out of the corrugations of the coastline to stay away from the road as much as possible. But the diversions make the walk increasingly fussy, and longer than it should be.

As yesterday, it begins to rain, and the holiday resort ambience is reinforced by the growing quantity of plastic bags and Coke bottles lying beside the route. To escape from the busy road, at Hele Bay I take up the invitation to divert again towards the sea. The coast path takes a confusing and unnecessarily complicated route over the wooded hillside in which sits the ruins of iron-age Fort Hillsborough. I’m a bit tired by now and I get irritated as the signs send me up and down the hill. The logic, if there is one, seems to be that if you’re walking the coastal path you won’t mind a few bonus ascents before you are granted entry to Ilfracombe.

Ilfracombe

This is a town firmly at the holidaymaking end of the Devon spectrum. There are numerous pubs, and a lot of bucket-and-spady-seaside-town shops.

 

 

The town also has a theatre that looks like a power station, and a Damien Hirst statue – Verity – at the end of the harbour. This is a pregnant woman with a sword.

Verity, Ilfracombe Harbour

I go into a pub on the harbour. It advertises a tempting array of beers and fresh fish. The beers are from the local Wizard Brewing Co. and have names like ‘Druid’s Fluid’ and ‘Thirst Borne’. But the barman says they are not serving food tonight and the only beer available is bottled porter (Druid’s Fluid). He needs to get round to brewing more, he says. The porter turns out to be very tasty, and he only charges me £2.

I’m staying in a backpackers hostel. It’s the cheapest and most basic accomodation of my trip so far. It’s clean and dry, and after a shower and change of clothes I feel refreshed. But my legs are tired, despite the shorter walk today.

And there is another long day tomorrow.

South West Coast Path: Day 2

Porlock to Hunter’s Inn, Heddon’s Mouth (44,000 steps)

The view towards Porlock Weir

 

There is one other guest at breakfast. I ask him if he’s walking.

“No, I’m working.”

“Someone has to” I say.

He’s down from Nottingham to insulate a house. I imagine they appreciate insulation on Exmoor in the winter. He doesn’t seem to want to chat. Which is fine with me. I am after all walking the coast path for five days on my own.

Breakfast is cereal and fruit, followed by a mushroom omelette, accompanied by beans and Landlady Gill’s homemade ‘fatty rascals’, a kind of scone with cheese and herbs. I eat my fill, conscious of the many miles ahead of me.

South West Coast Path: Day 1

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Minehead to Porlock (24,000 steps)

Minehead: The Trail Begins

Monday morning, 7.30. I leave the house with my pack and my stick. I am making an early start because you can never be sure how long it will take to cross London to Paddington at this time.

The sun is out, the sky at least half blue. The air, even in SE13, smells fresh and full of possibility. So far, the signs are good. I walk a few paces along the road, heading for Brockley station. At once, a cloud covers the sun and somewhere a dog howls. A sly pain announces itself in my knee, promising further bulletins as the miles pass.

Maybe a little early to be sure about those signs.

With the sea on the right…

I’ve never been a bucket list kind of person. I don’t have a list of places to go, people to meet, marathons to run. But for as long as I can remember I have wanted to walk the length of the South West Coast Path.

When I was still in full-time employment, for all that I loved my job, there were times when my mind would wander in the occasional dull meeting. When that happened, my thoughts would always drift away from Whitehall to cliffs above the Atlantic, to wind-whipped waves and big skies. When I retire, I used to tell myself, I’ll walk that coastal trail.