Walking Hard and Beer Before Breakfast

Yesterday morning I was up for an early start. There was a fair bit of interest in my mission, two guys on site were ex-forces and we had some good chats, and Mary who runs the site came round, gave me a tenner for H4H and we talked about her and her husband’s life as they are going to let the site go next year. Nice folk. I walked over to the Devon Cliffs Holiday Park where the Coast Path runs through and had breakfast in their big entertainment complex. Not great but I made two new friends.

I carried on to Budleigh Salterton, what an elegant village! The weather was overcast but as usual it cleared up and the sun shone later. The place was characterful and marks the border between South and East Devon. It has a pebble beach and someone had collected different coloured pebbles to make a really good collage on the beach. Cop these!

I was talking to another ex-services bloke, they come up when they see my T shirt, and he said that the village had the highest proportion of millionaires anywhere in the UK in the 70s and 80s. It also has some classy street artists.
I’m not sure if you can make out the partially submerged Mercedes.
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It was a long walk to Sidmouth. Every day carrying the rucksack I sweat like a pig and my clothes stink so I need to regularly do the launderette and to shower. That’s reduced my ability to camp rough as showers are nearly essential. It’s a side effect of the exceptional weather.

The rock formations get interesting and there are sandstone stacks en route.

I stopped in Sidmouth for a pint at the Radway Inn, at the bottom of a long steep hill to Salcombe Regis where my campsite was. I motored it and set up Wilson, had a shower and went to bed at 7pm. I’d done 15 miles and I was knackered.

I got up refreshed at 7am, showered again, packed away and got off by 8am.
I wanted to make Beer before breakfast – great name for a town! This is rural England at it’s best. A throwback. You expect Captain Mainwaring to march around the corner. Cows, peacocks and thatched cottages. A beautiful part of the country to walk through. It’d drive me bloody mad without a takeaway nearby!

I’d read about the blacksmith/farrier at Branscombe, one of the last remaining local forges, and was lucky enough to walk past as he was sparking up his forge. God bless the Smiths!

I made it to Beer before breakfast and broke it on the front with fantastic eggs benedict and limitless pots of tea for six quid. Breakfast and lunch – fantastic.
The next section was pretty tough and ends up in a seven mile path through a forested area below the cliffs from Seaton to Lyme Regis. This area is basically collapsed cliffs that keep on collapsing within themselves. I had only ventured a quarter of a mile into it when there was a warning that the path had collapsed and that entry was barred by a local council order and that Devon council suggested that walkers get a bus. I carried on and eventually came to a cordon. On this path the problem is that you can’t go up the cliff or down to the sea to get round problems. It’s a four hour journey on a single path and in this instance there were several collapses. I climbed over the cordon and came to the first drop of the path, about 10 feet but someone had tied a rope to a tree and tied knots in it so even with the rucksack I could get down it. There were four further collapses which I was able to climb up, down, up and down. The final collapse had another rope attached to a post at the top. It looked well enough tied and the rope was of good enough quality to haul myself up and climb over the cordon intended to stop others coming in the opposite direction.

The slog was hard. If the elves are anywhere in the south they’re here. The undergrowth is deep and there’s nobody about for miles.

Finally I made Lyme Regis and entered Dorset. I looked forward to seeing the Cobb, which we’d visited when we lived in Bristol in mid-winter with cold winds, atmosphere and the whole vista in black and white, including the French Lieutenant’s woman dressed in black and walking in mysterious ways. I turned the corner to the Cobb and could have wept. Mobile homes laced the surrounding area, crappy shops on the Cobb itself selling tat to morons and every inch filled with commercial cack. Lyme Regis – your town is worthless.

The tide was out so I was able to walk along the bottom of the cliffs to Charmouth, where I’ve pitched up for the night. Some great fossils on the beach on this world heritage Jurassic Coast.

The SWCP website reckons I’ve done 18 miles today.
I’ve done 547 miles in total – 83 to go!

Night
1. Porlock
2. Lynton
3. Hunters Inn
4. Coombe Martin
5. Woollacombe
6. Braunton
7. Bideford
8. Abbotsham
9. Hartland
10. Morwenstowe
11. Bude
12. Crackington Haven
13. Tintagel
14. Port Gaverne
15. Rock
16. Harlyn
17. Trevarrian
18. Perranporth
19. Portreath
20. Hayle
21. St Ives
22. Zennor
23. Cape Cornwall
24. Porthcurno
25. Penzance
26. Porthleven
27. Lizard Point
28. Coverack
29. Helford
30. Falmouth
31. Portloe
32. Pentewan
33. Par
34. Polruan
35. Looe
36. Whitsand Bay
37. Plymouth
38. Wembury
39. Mothecombe
40. Bigbury on Sea
41. Salcombe
42. Torcross
43. Dartmouth
44. Paignton
45. Teignmouth
46. Exmouth
47. Salcombe Regis
48. Charmouth