Che drove us to Salcombe, whilst David and Chantal drove behind, leaving their car at Kingsbridge. We picked them up and at Salcombe we nipped out of the van and made our way down to the quay. How great is walking? Really great. Long distance, difficult walking gives you a buzz. All exercise does I guess.

We walked down to the quay and took the ferry across the Kingsbridge estuary. We were straight into good walking territory.

It’s difficult to describe the joy of walking this path. It’s not just exercise or spiritual cleansing or reconnection with Mother Earth or appreciation of historical settlements or owt else potty. It’s you and the air around you. Cool, warm, windy or calm. That’s what counts. And sunshine. Obviously sunshine you gormless pillock. What about the views? Well, obviously the views you turkey. The comradeship with your fellow walking Killer matey boy and girl? Well, that goes without saying daft lad.

We needed to make it to Torcross by 17.47, to get a bus back to Kingsbridge to pick up the car and then pick up a Nepali takeaway that the Kilby’s were treating us to, then get to a 13th Century pub for an evening of merriment. Where do we go now, where do we go?

We really gave it some welly round the headland and down to Beesands and somewhere else and on to Torcross. We were lucky that the tide wasn’t too far in and we were able to leg it along the beach before we got trapped.

Look at this old pillock earlier in the day. Doesn’t know what he’s doing, where he’s going, what he’s eating. What a prat.

We caught the bus to Kingsbridge, got our brilliant Nepalese takeaway from Royal Gurkha Spice in Modbury and after eating it we meandered up to a pub that was over 1,000 years old.

Incredible.

Night night.

It’s Salcombe really but it sounds like Sale Con. Inspired by spending time with Chantal, who is a Frenchy, and Killer, who is Frenglish, I’m calling it Sale Con. If you put it in google translate it comes out as Dirty Bastard.

Guffawing erupts before sniggering, which descends into high pitched tittering, which gives way to schoolboy giggling, which finally surrenders to raucous laughter. Salcombe…….aa ha ha ha! Dirty Bastard aa ha ha ha!

Che drove us round to the other side of the Avon estuary from Bigbury. The ferry wasn’t working until 10am. Just 13 miles today on another sunny day. Looking back Bigbury was basking in the light.

What a section this is, but in fairness it’s all amazing, and on our doorstep. Laurie Lee just stepped out of his door near Gloucester one morning and ended up in Andalusia during the civil war. How brilliant is that?

After another headland the look back was like this.

We were making good time, and the weather has been unbelievable. A bacon sandwich helps to keep the legs working, so we did it, and carried on.

This is what used to be July weather. And the beauty was that it was beginning to get craggier.

I’m very brave. I’m not allowed to divulge my (imagined) special forces experience but I am incredibly brave.

Walking through a herd of Highland cattle scares me, so do noises, people, other animals, anything unusual and falling asleep. Cities, roads, nettles, confined spaces, open spaces. In fact it’s difficult to find a space that doesn’t frighten me. In fact I’m not brave at all. This lad made me keech myself, but we all kept walking and they ignored us.

We reached the end of a ridge and dropped down a steep slope. Whatever goes down on the South West Coast Path must go up.

Around the bend was the path to Salecon. Hooraaay!!

Through woods and by beaches.

We rocked up to the bus stop to get us back to Kingsbridge so Che could pick us up.

One of the crap phrases emerging from the 20th century was ‘rocked up’. Nevertheless I shall use it if I please and if it pleases me. Rocked up, rocked up, rocked up.

The estuary beyond Salecon was lovely.

We caught the bus to Kingsbridge, Che picked us up and drove us back to the campsite, where we cooked 2 kgs of mussels in white wine and double cream, followed by peri peri barbecued chicken. How lovely was that. VERY!!

The night was dark and delightful.

Night night.

Our challenge was to get back to Wembury, and Che sorted that by coaching us out in her motor. It was a short walk to get to the ferry across the estuary to Noss Mayo. From Noss Mayo we needed to leg it quickly for nearly four hours to reach the Erme estuary so that we could wade across the river before it became flooded by the incoming tide.

David and Chantal are fit and it was me holding them back, but I don’t want to try to go beyond my steady pace as I’m sure I’d damage something. But just keep going steadily and I can cover decent distances. Particularly when the path climbs and falls a lot.

We made the ferry crossing in decent time.

On the other side there were some rock oysters clinging to the lowest rocks and I managed to dislodge two. Salty, creamy and fresh. They are really difficult to loosen from the rocks, more obstinate than limpets. I then freed another one later so Chantal, David and myself each had a taste.

The coast was getting more and more stunning.

As we rounded the corner we could see our challenge. The Erme estuary was just below the horizon in the centre of the photo. The island off Bigbury on Sea which we were aiming for today is on the horizon to the right of this photo in the haze.

The walk up and down the cliffs was taxing again and we were beginning to feel it. It took us nearly four hours to make it into the estuary and the tide was still well and truly out.

The sand leading down to the river was squidgy in places, like quicksand. And in the water there were banks of sand which gave way to squidgy bits and deeper bits and bits that felt alright. We took our boots and socks off and waded across where we thought it was shallowest.

It was a bit chilly but certainly not unpleasant, although it was a great shame that Chantal didn’t stumble over here and, in the process of throwing her phone over to dry land, dive head first into the drink, getting washed downstream and out to sea, where she had to be rescued by the RNLI, justifying mine and David’s fundraising efforts for them last year. That would have been a laugh wouldn’t it. Rhetorical question.

After the lower limb exposure to the cold water our legs were burning and full of energy. Wonderful testament to the power of cold water dips.

We dried off and rebooted, found the Coast Path and continued. Hooraay!

I like hooraay me. It’s enthusiastic and rousing. Inspiring too, like the Coast Path in this area of South Devon. How beautiful it is.

There are so many coves, beaches and headlands with nobody on them. A wonderful land. Much, much more than green and pleasant.

After more serious ups and downs we made it to Challaborough, which I’d walked to and from the previous evening so we were continuous to Bigbury on Sea. Sixteen miles today, which is not shabby for this type of topography.

Che, being the usual hero, drove round to join us at the pub on the holiday development there, where we had a good meal, a few drinks and watched European Cup football. Then she drove us home. What a great way to end a great day.

Night night.

We’re the famous Sheff United and we’re going to Wembury.

We were moving camp today, round to Farmer John’s place at Mount Folly Farm in Bigbury on Sea, back over the Cornish border into Devon. Farmer John is the man who found me leaning against his farm gate eleven years ago. I was exhausted, hungry and tired. I was nearly finished. He gave me a camping space and reappeared, after I’d strapped my tarpaulin up, with a pig’s trotter. Food rarely comes better tasting or more welcome. Then he joined me at the end of the walk, piped into Poole by a brass band.

I hope he’s ok. Neither of us is young.

Che wrapped up our tent and the Kilby’s wrapped up theirs. Then David drove us to Plymouth and we picked up the Coast Path where I’d left off last Friday. Che wrapped up our stuff and formed the advance party to Bigbury.

Plymouth is a game of four halves. Industrial, residential, Naval and touristical. All the others ended in al so touristic had to as well.

It’s messy in areas and beautiful in others but overall ok is the highest rating I could give it if asked.

This is quite a huge stone rhino, there is another one that I walked past in Puerto Banus, one of Salvador Dali’s creations. Sorry this isn’t clear.

Chantal was excited by the inset post boxes, and this one was a rare example which bore the initials VR. At least 125 years old. Victoria Regina.

Another famous name. How brilliantly was he portrayed by Peter O’Toole. Rhetorical question.

We came round the south eastern headland jutting out into Plymouth Sound. What doesn’t look good when the weather is this kind and the sea is involved. Rhetorical question.

The path then pushes off into the heart of the South Devon coast. And how outrageously beautiful it is,

The journey ended towards Wembury, but it was a good 14 miles yomp and another beautiful day.

After the urban/industrial start through Plymouth the coast was transforming the further east we walked. Becoming lovely.

Wembury was quite a big dormitory of Plymouth, either commuters or second homers. No room for the locals, and it felt dead. There was no bus for two hours, the only pub was shut and Che was a 45 minutes drive away.

She responded by coming straight out, after we had ummed and aahed about calling her for an hour.

She took us back to Plymouth, we collected the Killers’ car and we headed home. They pitched their tents and Che finished cooking her signature dish, chicken in sherry with garlic.

Kismet Hardy.

Night night.

And after all.

Today was my first day walking with the Kilbys. Yesterday me and Senor Kilby went out into the Channel on a fishing boat. Caught some reyt fish, pollock bashing.

And we had them for tea last night. I filleted eight of them so there was enough to save for tomorrow. Che will be making a curry. Tonight’s barbecued fish was beautifully fresh and tasty. Tasty. Very, very tasty.

Che took me and Mr and Mrs Killer to Polruan this morning in her van. We all went over to Fowey on the ferry. It was lovely.

A decent bacon and egg sandwich, back on the ferry and I was connected to where I finished last year. Come on lads and lass. And Mr Kilby explained in detail to his captivated wife the game of paper and scissors. However he forgot the rock.

All together now to trek for Prostate Cancer UK. Hip, hip, hoooray! Goodbye to Che and Flo for a while.

Chantal, aka Mrs Kilby, is very prone to seasickness, however she successfully completed her second ferry crossing without the faintest whiff of vomit. Well done you!

Setting off from Polruan the path climbed up the cliff side until we came to the place where, eight years ago, I fell off the cliff headfirst, fractured my skull and got a Funky Cold Medina.

It was actually a Cerebral Haematoma but if you sing along to Tone Loc’s song you can put that in, in place of Funky Cold Medina. It scans the same. Sounds the same. Looks the same. I’ll put it down as ‘probably the same’.

That’s why I found, you don’t play around with Cerebral Haematoma.

Someone, no doubt touched by my tragic fall and heroic recovery, has now installed a rope to ensure that folk don’t do a Tom Daley on to the rocks below.

I looked around over the drop and I couldn’t see any blood. Although it was a few years since I shed it. But it fell on an area of smooth rocks and the prophet Ezekiel uses the image of blood on a smooth rock to illustrate the consequences of shedding innocent blood. The smooth rock symbolizes that the blood will not be covered up or forgiven, but rather will remain as a stain. 

David Smith you weirdo, move on. OK, but in exchange you must listen to Richard Cheese singing Creep. A touch of class.

So we moved on towards Lantic Bay (in the background).

And suddenly we were much closer.

The weather couldn’t be better. Sunny but still a breeze. The views were just fabulous. In the kind of way that when you see it in bright sunlight the colours change, maybe become more blue, and the image appears to be inside your head rather than out in front. But it doesn’t work when it’s not warm.

And beyond Lantic Bay the path rode up and down the cliffs.

Ordinary coastal views become magical when the colour and smell of the gorse drifts over your path, the sea is calm and you’re feeling at one with the world. But not the Universe because that really is too big to comprehend and it’s too scary to think about. So is infinity and the end of time.

So let’s just get our heads back to the gentle beauty of the south Cornwall coast. Where a path along the middle of a small rocky headland leads, like a ski jump, to a stunning blue sea.

This walk is only 8 miles, including our wandering in Fowey, but it is a steep, repeated rise and fall.

We are not alone.

All things must pass.

Eventually this most beautiful of walks stumbled into town, just like a sacred cow. And the town was Polperro. The end of today’s walk.

The Three Pilchards is a pub built into the cliff, with stone steps at the back through a tunnel that leads to an open air upper bar, perched on the cliff side. And you can climb higher with your food and drink if you really want.

We did.

Then Che picked us up, took us back to the campsite, fed and watered us further with pollock curry and white wine and tucked us up in bed. She sprinkled stardust in our eyes and whispered, go to sleep everything is alright.

I closed my eyes and drifted away.

Night night.

I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better. Thank you mister. Is New York cold?

Che dropped me off this morning at a place called Downderry. From here I will walk to Plymouth, about 18 miles. It was overcast and I was feeling ok about walking. The tide was out and the sand was exposed, so I walked along it as far as I could.

Then it all ended and I had to get back up to the Coast Path.

There was a bit of a rock climb and then a rope up a steep track.

And over the top after a while was Portwrinkle, with a golf club that did breakfast butties. Heavenly. Then on, over the golf course and back down to the beach before the tide reclaimed its land.

It was a dodgy little path that ended up at the top of a cliff with a fractious climb down to the sand below. I was glad to get down.

The tide was coming in now at a fair lick and there were not too many exit routes. I sped up my pace and loved scooting across the sand.

Eventually the sea was filtering through gaps in the sand and cutting off my exit. After a few clambers over rocks and on to the last beach I knew I had to leg it. I raced the tide right up to Rame Head, and then slipped inland. A great run.

The cloud came down and I got my head down and headed for the nearest village, Cawsand.

Then the cloud cleared again and I ended up on a ridge leading out from Cawsand towards a ferry to Plymouth.

Then a quick dash to the station, a train to Looe, a nip across the road and the Kilby’s arrived in the pub I was sat in just ten minutes later.

A good day topped with fish and chips takeaway to our tents and a relatively early night.

I covered 18 miles today. It was great.

Night night.

Well, I started walking yesterday and stopped today. Because the weather forecast was great and I wanted to take my sister to Lantic Bay. It is quite special and relatively inaccessible. But not really inaccessible. In my head I sometimes think that words that I know well don’t sound right and, in extreme examples, might not exist at all. Inaccessible is floating around as a possible. It just doesn’t feel wordy at the moment.

And then it passes and they take their place in my brain again, as if they had never been questioned. My brain is not inaccessible.

I owed my sis for petrol and various things she had bought and brought. So I bought two live lobsters and a kilo of mussels for a barbecue lunch at Lantic Bay. The tide was too far in for us to pick mussels off the cliffs, as I have done a few times down there. So I bought them, and paid off my debt to Che.

She drove us to the National Trust car park on the back of the cliffs and we trekked over to Lantic Bay with a shedload of scran and cooking items.

Then there was a steep drop down to the beach. Such a wonderful place.

We set up camp against the cliffs on the east end of the beach and collected some driftwood. Then we sparked up the barbecue and topped it up with our collected wood.

What a meal!

A veritable feast. Then we relaxed and wandered a bit on the beach.

A lovely day. And I’ve had a shower when we got back and I smell ok.

Hoooooraay!

Tomorrow is an early start. I’m hoping to walk from Downderry to the far side of Plymouth. Nearly 20 miles. We’ll see.

Night night.

Thanks Glenn and two Dons.

Today was wonderful. I had a great sleep, although it really lashed it down with high winds and heavy rain. I’m sleeping heavily recently. At 70 you wonder if it’s significant. Am I transitioning? As people get older they sleep less. Perhaps I’m getting younger. What do you think?

Now that bloke doesn’t look 70. But in January he did. Proof. I’m getting younger and I bet my hair grows back and then I’ll drive down a dark desert highway with cool wind in my hair. YEEEEESSS!

Che drove me down to Polperro where we had breakfast together at the Wheelhouse.

Breakfast was great but expensive so we’re going to do our own from now on.

I think Polperro is the most beautiful seaside village in Cornwall, but heavily touristic in summer.

Looking back the other way is just as good.

Then out on to the salt path. Is dying like this or does it all just go black forever? I think it goes black. Bet you a quid it does.

This is the magnificent cliff protecting the harbour from the south westerlies.

I love this path. It’s great at this time of year with not many folk on it, and those who are on it take it seriously but enjoy it too. What’s not to enjoy? Looking back towards Polperro.

And forward towards Talland Bay and beyond to Rame Head, which protects Plymouth from the south westerlies.

I made reasonable time, despite stopping to talk to solo travellers coming the other way. People wanting to feel the freedom and transcendental effect of trekking day after day. People trying to find something.

You might be thinking ‘Pretentious prick’. If you are then it’s an accurate thing to think but it contains a swear word so you are barred from this blog for at least 5 minutes.

Five minutes?

Yes, starting now. But you have to self-time it. Don’t cheat……You cheated you prick!

Talland Bay is lovely too.

I was feeling very unfit and I wasn’t carrying a heavy rucksack, just my daysack. The long uphill stretches were doing me in. I hadn’t trained and I was feeling it. But it’s only 12 miles today.

I’m leaving a gap from Fowey to Polperro that I will fill in on Sunday with my friends Senor y Senora Kilby. Tomorrow I’m having a rest day with my sister, just walking to places that mean a lot to her emotionally, and on Friday I’ll walk Downderry to Plymouth. I’m organised, but I prefer busking it.

This is a hill beyond Downderry. A place where those beneath the crosses will spend eternity. Nice view of the sea.

The shoreline is rugged throughout Cornwall, decorated occasionally by beautiful beaches.

Then over the brow of a brow I could see the outskirts of Looe and the island, to the right of the photo, which Joseph of Arimathea visited with the Christ child. According to local legend.

Between Looe, on the left, and the island, on the right, is Downderry in the background. That’s where I’m aiming for today.

But before I get there I’m walking to Looe. It doesn’t scan as well as New Orleans. But I’m sure the journey compares favourably.

Looe was ere!

The next step was a quick dap up the river, crossing the bridge and a march up the next cliff. But on the way reality kicked in. A poor Navy lad, killed by a nasty get on a motorbike. He got a suspended sentence and Rohan’s parents get a life of grief. The legal system letting decent folk down again.

I didn’t realise that my mate Gary Illingworth was here.

Then up the cliffs again looking back.

And a bank of pure beauty.

Then I came across a place called Downderry.

Che picked me up and I’m back at camp. Great day, great walk.

Night night.

Last April I walked the first half of the South West Coast Path, 378 miles, from Minehead in Somerset to Fowey in southern Cornwall. That left 254 miles to complete the full Path up to Poole in Dorset.

So this morning I caught a bus and a train to get to Sheffield to meet my sis, Che at Meadowhall. In her British Gas van she drove us down to Looe. What a star.

The walk is in aid of Prostate Cancer UK and so far, thanks to the generosity of my sponsors we’ve raised £3,270, plus nearly £700 from Gift Aid tax relief. I’m happy and my mate Chip would be ok with that too.

If anyone wants to donate it would be more than gratefully received, and you can do so at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/blade-goes-west-again-60145

Thank you my dear friends and family.

To be honest Looe looked a bit rundown on the main drag, with groups of ne’er do wells and empty premises. But the view down river was as good as ever.

We’re camping here for a few days, with Che picking me up and dropping me off where I finish each day. She is a kind sister.

Thanks for reading this.

Night night.

I’d loved it yesterday but, waking up this morning my leg was very painful and the bruising still quite deep. It was a shame because the sun was out and it was a lovely day. To be honest I struggled to get out of bed. Once out of bed it was clear that I wasn’t going to be climbing to any great height. This knock had been like a forceful dead leg.

With the van being iffy as well I thought it was best to beat an early retreat home, just enjoying what we’d already done, and giving Che time to sort out things if the van conked out completely.

What a shame when Snowdon looked like this! And how much snow had melted overnight.

Well it’s been a good trip, even if I only climbed one of the mountains. At least it was the biggest. The biggest in England and Wales. The coast path was good too, although I didn’t feel a great affinity for the place. I don’t think I’ll be trying to complete it. Not whilst Scotland stands proud and unconquered.

We wrapped up the tent and set off slowly across the country on A roads, not risking a motorway breakdown. Monkeys can drive cars.

She’s been very kind and generous and as she is retiring in March we will spend more time together on treks. It’s great support and camaraderie.

Back at last over the moors to Sheffield.

I’m staying at Che’s tonight and then on home to Leeds by train tomorrow.

Parting is such sweet sorrow. See you in March.

Night night.