Devon

Day 86 – Westward Ho! to Braunton 20 Oct 2016
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Day 86 – Westward Ho! to Braunton 20 Oct 2016

Today was a good day to end the trip.  We left our very nice B & B (excellent breakfast of smoked salmon) and walked back into the town to rejoin the path. We wound through the edge of Westward Ho, into the little village of Appledore, with its lifeboat station and prettily coloured houses.

Appledore is an old harbour, used for years for salmon fishing. It is the location for the ferry across to Instow. There was a slight hitch when Chris realised he had forgotten his phone.  A frantic call to the B & B arranged for Mrs B & B to drive round to meet us on the other side of the ferry with the offending article.

We had an excellent coffee in the wholefood café and shop at Instow whilst Chris’s phone was en route. Although it was early for elevenses, the cake looked extremely yummy, so we took the opportunity to load up on calories early. Not that today’s walk was difficult – it took us along the south bank of the River Taw, which meanders gently into Barnstaple, with mudflats, marsh and various bits of old engineering to interest us, particularly the old Instow railway station, on the route between Barnstaple and Fremington.

We watched some workers fixing the old railway bridge crossing an inlet. They had their work cut out – every time they tried to push the full barrow up the bank, they slipped and slid in the mud. We marked them for barrow-running technique as we munched our lunch. The older chap had more technique, the younger ones, brute force.

I was delighted to find two of the Sustrans cycle way markers, that I haven’t seen for ages. There were loads in Kent, but they have been few and far between since.  Like most flat journeys, the walk seemed to take a longer time than expected.

We arrived in Barnstaple at around 4pm. Jon and Chris elected to call it a day, as Jon is now going inland to pursue his end-to-end journey by going across Exmoor and has refused to accept my pleas to divert to the coast as it would mean going west again. I decided to continue along the north side of the River Taw as far as Braunton.  Other than crossing the modern road bridge, which saves a good mile on going into the town to cross the old bridge, It was a very dull walk, mostly paved, and there was a rather creepy bloke on the path who kept stopping, then when I passed him, started again, passed me and stopped. But he didn’t actually say or do anything.

I popped up onto the main road just outside  Braunton and got a bus back to Barnstaple. We are staying in an enormous old rectory, high up in the attic.  Doing the extra to Braunton also gave me five more miles, bringing the day to 22, the longest I have done since the crazy Seaton to Exmouth stretch on Day 28.

 

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Day 85 Clovelly to Westward Ho! 19th October 2016
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Day 85 Clovelly to Westward Ho! 19th October 2016

Today started out very straightforwardly.  Back up the cobbled street of Upalong-Downalong to the path, greeting more Clovelly cats as we went. The first three miles were along a level path called the Hobby Track through the woods. Once again there were lots of pheasant, but today there were also lots of guns. We could hear the beating and them the calling of the pheasants as they took flight. I shouldn’t complain as I am happy to eat pheasant and it is far better than factory farming, but I struggle to understand how anyone can actually get pleasure out of killing a live creature.

The guns gradually faded as we travelled briskly along. Our first descent was to Bucks Mill. – a tiny hamlet which once again hailed to produce a café. Then up and flat again until a sharp descent into Peppercombe where there was a crew of National Trust volunteers burning brush. There was not much wind so the smoke caught my throat and got into our eyes and hair.

As we looked back, we could see Clovelly – it had a bit of morning sun, but was soon in shadow. Coming out of Peppercombe, the path climbs up to the cliff top and veers north again. There were several long, painful ups and downs, before one drop right down to the cobbly shore. There was lots of litter and driftwood, some of the bakers’ tray sleds that the people of Clovelly use to drag things up and down. Not sure if they find trays that have come ashore or whether the trays get washed away. We reached Westward Ho! along the old Bideford to Westward railway track, which was apparently torn up for the First World War effort and shipped to France. Unfortunately, it never got there, being sunk in the Channel.

After an excellent cream tea at the Tea on the Green Café, we arrived at our B & B, the Mayfield. We had noticed down on the sea-front, some of the lines from Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem ‘If’, laid out in shells. It seems he went to school here, in the buildings opposite our B & B and this is where his book ‘Stalky & Co.’ is set. Excellent school stories – not nearly as ‘play up and play the game’ as you might imagine. In fact, Stalky is a rebel who hates games – my kind of schoolboy.

Today’s distance was 19.7 km – just under 12.5 miles.

Day 84 – Philham to Clovelly 18th October 2016
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Day 84 – Philham to Clovelly 18th October 2016

It rained hard during the night and looked distinctly miserable at breakfast this morning. Jon, who had had a bad night, decided to do a shorter route but I was not to be dissuaded from the full monty and Chris decided to lend me moral support.

It soon cleared up and we have had a bright, windy, blustery day.  It took surprisingly little time to get back to the coast, compared with the hopeless trekking about of yesterday evening.  We rejoined the path about 1.5 miles south of Hartland Quay. Hartland Quay itself is a little strip of cottages, a pub and a hotel, all owned by the local manor.

Lighthouse at Hartland Point

Lighthouse at Hartland Point

There were several steep drops and climbs, but the path soon levelled out towards Hartland Point.

The views were great. Lundy was so clear today that we could almost see the puffins for which the island is famous.  12 miles off the coast, it marks the point where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Bristol Channel and was once owned by the Knights Templar (my completely random fact of the day!)

Around 12.15pm, we rounded Hartland Point, and began walking directly east, after days of north-north-west. We had a leisurely walk along the cliff tops for about 5 miles before dropping into several wooded groves.

Towards Clovelly

Towards Clovelly

I have never seen so many pheasants in my life. They were everywhere: in the woods, in the fields, skittering along the paths. Just outside Clovelly, the scenery becomes very woody, and the walking was lovely, through the fallen beech trees.

Clovelly itself is very odd. It seems to be entirely owned by the local estate and there is a distinctly feudal air about the whole place, which I guess might be friendly if you live there, but I found a bit overpowering.  The village is one long, and very steep, cobbled street from the top to the dock at the bottom.

Clovelly

Clovelly

It is famous apparently for donkeys, although we have not seen any – we were told that either ‘health and safety’ or ‘Europe’ has got rid of them, but I can’t remember which. The street down to the sea front is very steep and slippery – I didn’t much fancy going up and down it twice, so we went down to the pub and stayed there all evening.

On the up side, there are lots of cats, all very friendly and we were impressed by the clever use of baker’s palettes for carrying everything up and down the narrow street.

I was rewarded for resisting Jon’s attempts to lead me astray with a short walk as he had a scary cow incident that I am glad to have avoided.  On tomorrow to the wonderfully named Westward Ho! 13.2 miles.

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Day 83 – Bude to Philham 17 October 2016
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Day 83 – Bude to Philham 17 October 2016

Today has been pretty hardcore. Not the very hardest day I have ever done, but definitely in the top five, perhaps even the top three!

We managed to start a bit earlier today. Rachel had a bus to catch to get back to London for work tomorrow, so we had an earlyish breakfast and set off a few minutes before nine, fortified with an excellent meal including including Cornish pudding –  a sort of sausage but very peppery.

I slipped a Cornish pasty and some lemon cake into my rucksack. I was so full from last night and breakfast that I contemplated not taking lunch but everyone warned it would be a long tough day. The weather was blustery as we set out, blowing foam like confetti onto the land. img_1605The wind has been strong all day but although a few squalls crossed onto land, they were behind us, just giving us the odd shower. Not enough to get really wet.

What has been so tough are the relentless ups and dens. At least twelve times we climbed down steep slopes or staircases from the top of the cliffs to sea level, and up the other side. Absolutely exhausting, especially as the wind was fierce at times, although blowing us onto the coast rather than off.

We could see Lundy getting and at the end of the day it was plain visible whenever the clouds rolled back, although it frequently was obscured by clouds.

Around 2pm, we finally left Cornwall and crossed back into Devon. The Cornish coast has taken me twenty-three days to complete – definitely the longest county coast so far.img_1684

Above the long valley leading into Welcombe Mouth beach, we came to the writing hut of Ronald Duncan. I had never heard of him before, but Duncan was an important playwright and poet from the mid-twentieth century. Duncan was a pacifist and a conscientious objector, who, before the Second World War worked with Benjamin Britten, and is best known for writing the libretto to Britten’s ‘Rape of Lucretia’.  During the war, he began a co-operative farm near Welcombe Mouth, although not with conspicuous success. His little hut, which must have taken huge grit to complete, as all of the stone would have had to be dragged up or down a precipitous slope, made a welcome retreat from the wind.img_1694

Unfortunately we could not book anywhere to stay in Hartland Quay (the nearest settlement to the path), so had to go several miles inland to find one. It was getting dark and we were exhausted, so my navigational error that took us nearly a mile out of our way was not my finest hour. I must say,  Jon and Chris were very forgiving!

Pleasingly, we have a little suite to ourselves, and my bathroom has an enormous bath and numerous fluffy towels. Our hosts gave us a lift to and from the pub, for a rather indifferent meal.  I am now about to plunge into the aforementioned tub.

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