The only mention I’m going to give to Covid 19 is that it has meant that we have had to postpone all three trips we had planned to the SWCP in the early part of this year. We decided to postpone them for a full year, so 2021 looks like being the year that we finish.
In the meantime, Carolynn suggested that we revisited the sections of the path that she hadn’t yet completed. So I booked two trips for October: one to Exmouth and the section we did nearly a year ago now and one to the Cornish coast made famous by the TV series Poldark in a small village called Botallack. In my complete and utter selfishness I didn’t initially ask Andrew and Caroline if they wanted to join us. I assumed that as they’d already completed those walks they wouldn’t want to repeat them… as per usual I was mistaken and I’m extremely glad to say that they joined us for the Exmouth trip but not the Botallack trip as I’d only booked a one bedroom National Trust cottage! I’d also booked a flat in Exmouth that didn’t allow pets, I wasn’t popular especially with Lottie!
Kate lives just off the M5 and is perfectly placed for the first stop, two hours’ drive from Lutterworth and it’s not unusual for us to take a break and sometimes we even manage to meet Andrew and Caroline there. Normally though, our timings are out of sync, but not this time. Kate, well she was her usual self, bees flying around the kitchen (honey bees from the hives outside), the kitchen in full use! But as always, a wonderful open-hearted welcome with coffee and biscuits and two jars of honey to take home.
We started in-between the rain showers, reaching the Teignmouth ferry as it was about to leave. The walk to the end of our day through Teignmouth and past the pier was straightforward and except for the last kilometre or so, pretty much of it was flat. An easy day, except for the climb up to the top floor of the five storey Victorian terraced house that we were staying in… but what a view, worth every one of the hundreds of steps… well, felt like it, anyway.
Kate and Merlot joined us for today’s walk. The first part was as yesterday, walking beside the railway, until we reached Starcross where the ferry would take us to Exmouth and the gateway to the World Heritage Jurassic Coast that begins at the town’s five metre high futuristic cone of the Geoneedle at Orcombe Point.
The Edwardian, Victorian and Georgian architecture of the town made it a pleasure to walk through. I suppose it takes me back to a less chaotic time, a time when houses were built with character and not thrown up 20 to an acre! This second walk through Exmouth was one of appreciation rather than a town, that happened to be on the path, this time it wasn’t just a means to an end. Have I made the same mistake whilst walking through the other major conurbations that we’ve walked through on the SWCP? Have I missed an important part of our heritage by walking with blinkers on through the many other beautiful coastal towns? It’s a heritage that’s less permanent than the headlands, coves and estuaries that we have passed, and they will be there long after that that was created by Man…
We spent most of lunchtime and the early afternoon looking for a shelter that didn’t exist! Andrew was convinced that the RAF shelter that we stopped at last year, was between Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton. He was mistaken and a late lunch was taken at the café on the promenade at Budleigh Salterton, where Andrew and I sat chatting and the girls built stone towers…
As we had the time, we decided to split the following day into two, the first half Budleigh Salterton to Sidmouth, a morning’s walk over reasonably easy terrain. Andrew twisted his knee the day before and after a couple of kilometres decided that there was no point in making it worse as he’d done this section with Caroline, Lottie and me last November, so opted to meet us at Sidmouth. It was on this section that we found the RAF shelter Andrew was looking for the day before, a little before lunchtime, but we thought that to honour Andrew and his memory, we’d sit comfortably and eat our elevenses at least!
On the way into Sidmouth, Caroline insisted that we all search for the treasured gloves that she lost the previous November (11 months ago)! Strangely enough we didn’t find them. I think she was genuinely disappointed! There was a very good reason for finishing at Sidmouth, a reason I know all ice cream connoisseurs will appreciate… an ice cream topped with clotted cream, a trillion, zillion calories and a sugar rush that’s unrivalled… heaven!
Andrew and Caroline had to drive home early Monday morning, so Carolynn and I walked the short final stretch to Branscombe on our own. I’d forgotten how tough the day was. It was reminiscent of the days on the north Cornish coast as you crested one headland only to find a steep decent waiting and that inevitable ascent up the other side.
Just before we entered Branscombe Mouth the expected and forecasted rain began and we both smiled knowingly as we drank a welcome cup of coffee, changed in the car and started our long drive home.
Carolynn and I made our way down to the south-west for one last time this year. We were staying in a National Trust cottage called The Count House, just about the middle point of the one day’s walk we had come down to complete: a section from Rosemergy to Sennen Cove.
As we were there for two full days, we decided to split the walk into two, starting both times from the cottage. The Saturday we turned right, the weather a little dank and miserable, which always muddies your outlook on the walk. It was mainly uphill with poor views of the wild coastline as the wind forced the waves ever higher up the cliff face.
This trip, however, was a first for two reasons. We were walking without Andrew and Caroline and we would have to use public transport, not something either of us had done in many years. So as we made our way back along the road a couple of kilometres to a village called Trevowhan and the bus stop, the bus appeared. Great you might think, except we were still a distance from the aforementioned stop, there wouldn’t be another bus for two hours and the cherry on the top of the cake… it is now pouring down with rain! So the optimist that I am, I stuck out my arm, even though we weren’t yet at the bus stop, hoping that being actually at a bus stop wouldn’t be overly important at this time of year, on a wet Saturday afternoon. As I put my arm out and looked the bus driver in the eye, he totally and utterly ignored me. Since my retirement my patience has improved considerably and, I’ll be honest I shrugged it off and thought I’ll walk/run back to the Count House, pick up the car and fetch Carolynn. Low and behold though, all the bus driver was doing was finding a convenient place to stop and 100 metres down the road, he stopped and waited for us to board! I thanked him and he smiled… I couldn’t ask for anymore.
On Sunday we turned left, the sea once again on our right and the weather, although still windy, was missing those grey low depressing clouds. Today we appreciated those inlets and the ups, downs, ins and outs that go with them. We reached Cape Cornwall, only one of two capes in the UK, the other being Cape Wrath in Scotland. It is the meeting of two waters, the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Sea. It was thought to be the most westerly point in Cornwall before OS realised that that was in fact Land’s End.
The final section of the walk was along the bottom of the cliffs until we reached Whitesand Bay and we walked on the beach into Sennen Cove and our destination. We were there an hour before the bus was due to leave, so like many of the visitors we stood waiting, entranced by the breaking waves on the rocks and harbour walls. A mesmerising end to the day.
This was the end of our catch up, two glorious days in a cottage on the edge of civilisation with the sound of the sea crashing against the slowly receding cliffs, whilst we were cosy in our cocoon, safe and warm, both curled up on the settee by the log fire… bliss.
