Porlock to Lynmouth – A Day for All Seasons

It might be good to be able to tell your friends and family (with a swagger and a serious face) that you’re going to be sleeping under a tarp. The swagger disintegrates when you do it on a cold and very windy night. I slept badly, between the teeth (no I hadn’t got them in), between the gum chattering shivers.

The day broke cloudy and cold. I packed and picked up the Coast Path where I left off. A 9.35am start isn’t too bad and within an hour I’d walked to Porlock Weir across the salt marshes. Sporting a petrified forest.

And looking back along the grey pebble bank, the sea is to the left and the salt marsh to the right. At very high tides the bank gets breached and the salt marsh floods.

A lone tree stands amid the pebbles, defiantly growing gnarled and wizened. But still with a heart of oak. Thanks Richard.

The fence, which used to stand on the top of a small range of cliffs, has seen its base washed away, as it still swings defiant of gravity.

After a bacon sandwich and a coffee in Porlock Weir I started the ascent. This path goes up and up, then down and up. But not insignificant heights. Today I’ll climb well over half the height of Ben Nevis. This is an old toll cottage, stopping carriages in the old days and charging for the right to use the roads passing through the arches.

It had been cold since setting off, and I had my waterproof top and jumper on – maximum heat layers! It was still cold, until I got under the canopy of trees on the coastal hillside which sheltered the path from the wind. The woodland is set on a very steep hill and is very dense, too dense to walk through. But I heard someone walking above me. I couldn’t see them. And then I heard a deep toned flute. It was impossible for a person to be there. I’d like to think that it was an elven flute. Please be the elves.

Certainly, the children have seen them, in quiet places where the moss grows green. Thanks Robin.

The path was festooned with ancient building works.

Including the smallest complete parish church in England, Culbone church. Miles from nowhere. Thanks Cat.

Just down the path is an idolatrous image of the Virgin Mary that can only have been placed there by a Catholic person. Should I inform Thomas Cranmer so that he can inform the King?

I had a thirst, walking mile after mile on a rough undulating path with a heavy rucksack. So I took advantage of the Exmoor streams to top up my water bottle. Sweet tasting water.

Until I came across a dead deer, which might leak horrible things into the water ecosystem. Oh God what have I done? I may become ill!

Some bugger sawed its horns off.

All of a sudden it got cold again and started raining. I got my rain gear back on and rain-covered the rucksack.

I wasn’t too preoccupied with the weather to ignore the beauty of wild primroses!

I was getting tired now, and there was a long way to go. Mercifully the weather improved quickly and dramatically.

I had been walking for nearly six hours before I got my first view of Lynmouth and Lynton, almost indistinguishable in the late afternoon sun.

It spurs you on when you see the final destination.

There aren’t many people walking the path at the moment. The weather has been really cold and wet and windy for months, so that’s probably put folk off. A shame because these pleasures are unique in time and space.

Then the path dropped down dramatically to Lynmouth, a small village nestling at the end of a steep gorge which drops down from the top of Exmoor. To its detriment.

In mid-August 1952 there was a massive storm over Exmoor, delivering 9 inches of rain in 24 hours. The gorge down to Lynmouth was blocked by uprooted trees, forming a huge dam which eventually burst. A massive wave, carrying trees and boulders, swamped down the gorge, destroying homes and businesses in its path. Thirty four people died, hundreds were homeless and dozens of cars were swept out to sea.

Prophetically on this sign Exmoor met the sea, catastrophically.

I made it to the campsite, which was up the gorge which had led to the Lynmouth tragedy. By which time the sun had gone in again and the wind was bitter. There was no signal, due to the depth of the gorge, so I went into the pub next door which had Wi-Fi, and got a message from Maggie. She’d found a hotel in Lynton with a room for £30. I ate in the pub and legged it up the hill to Lynton to claim my room. No chattering gums. No sleepless in seattle.

Hooray!

On the path to Lynton I got a great, late evening view of the hills I had yomped over.

For those friends who aren’t familiar with the South West Coast Path this is the UK and Republic of Ireland, with the South West marked by a crayon.

Honing in on the South West, this is the route of the Coast Path. If you look up north to Minehead then that is where I started. To get round to the end, which is down bottom right and just out of picture, will take 52 days walking, but I’m stopping at Plymouth on the 23 May, and then restarting on around the 8 July.

The Path is famous for its undulation, rising up nearly four times the height of Mount Everest, so it’s not an easy walk. However it doesn’t have to be finished in any timescale. Some people do segments over many years. I talked to a man yesterday who was going the other way round to me and finishing in Minehead. He had taken 26 years! When you work you can’t give it too much time each year. But he did it!

So will I.

Night night.