Abbotsham to However Far I Can Get – Second Blog Today

I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag, but sometime you have to, unless you’re over 600lbs, like people on those programmes of fatties that are advertised on tv.

They’re right fat. How do you wipe your arse when your arms can’t get that far round? Is it safe to sit on a bog and what if……..oh hold on a minute….. I’m being told that this line of monologue is unacceptable and could render me liable to prosecution under the Porkers’ Rights Act 2019. It could cause huge offence.

Yeah but…..yeah but….. yeah….. Understood. Sorry to any 600 pounders. No offence meant.

I packed and headed back down to the Coast Path, on a windy, dark morning.

The tide was on its way out with the shoreline advancing towards America.

What a beautiful conclusion to the Bristol Channel.

It became apparent that my target for today was too ambitious. Two women overtook me and in conversation they mentioned that there was a campsite near Clovelly where the owner picks you up from the path and drops you back. For nowt! New target! The sun highlighted Clovelly. It didn’t look far but on the path it was another 10 miles.

I dropped down to the coast and, with the tide still retreating, it was safe to walk along the pebbled and bouldered beach, which had accumulated tons of driftwood. Pity I can’t take it home.

The rocks reminded me of the Cote Granit Rose in Brittany that I walked with Antonia and Georgie, my two eldest daughters. That great pink hue.

It was a difficult route, trying to step from boulder to boulder whilst keeping up decent momentum. Folk look at you when you’re sporting walking poles as if you’re a fop with some kind of pathetic fashion accessory. Well matey folk, if I hadn’t got them I would break my ankle on this ground at the speed I’m doing it.

The cliffs sported waterfalls as fashion accessories, resulting in few places where I could escape the seafront.

Two miles short of Clovelly I was able to climb up a cliff path to meet the Coast Path, to see a sign that it was 4.5 miles walking this way. In and out, up and down. However, the woodlands I was walking through were beautiful. How English are bluebells!

Then my first near view of Clovelly. I was so glad that I wasn’t walking all the way to Hartland Quay in one go.

Clovelly is made for tourists. Its cobbled path drops down a kilometre to the quay. I bumped into Claire in the shop there, a woman who had set off from Minehead at the same time as me from the same hotel. She took off from Minehead like a rocket and I’d seen her briefly in Ilfracombe but she was covering ground quickly and was wild camping so she didn’t have to walk inland to campsites. As a result she was miles and a day ahead of me. Sadly she had got debilitating, deep blisters, and this was the end of the path for her.

I had liver and onions in the New Inn in Clovelly. My first food since my bounty bar breakfast.

Afterwards I legged it to the campsite. It was only a mile and it was around dinner time so I thought I’d walk rather than asking for a lift.

Roey’s was a decent campsite, just my tarp and the girls who had suggested this site who were in a tent.

A good day’s walking.

Night night.