Day 6: Braunton to Westleigh

Weather: Grey all day with a hint of late sun, chilly westerley

Distance covered today: 25.1km (15.6mi)

Last night's B&B: Stockwell Lodge

% Complete: Cumulative distance: 12.5%: 127.2km

Total Ascent/Total Descent:  215m/195m

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 6 (click!)

He came yomping up the path towards me in a strangely familiar fashion. As he approached, I stopped him and said, “Hullo, sorry….., but I think I’ve met you somewhere?!”
“What? Me? Whadya mean? When?”
“I know!” said I “Isn’t your name P… Pat…. PATRICK?!!!”
“Yes, but….”
“I remember now!” I said with rising enthusiasm “We met on the Roman road of Dere Street, just off the Pennine Way. We were heading for Jedburgh in Scotland. We were both doing Land’s End to John O’Groats. Back in 2011, early June, I think”
“Yes, I remember now. We had lunch together. There was someone else”
“Yes, an Aussie. He had worked for BP. I think his name was Richard.  I remember you told me that it was your second LEJOG. You said you had been depressed after completing it the first time, and your doctor recommended doing it again!”
“Well, I am doing it again. This is my fifth time!”

I couldn't believe my ears! The fifth time! I remember describing him as a nutter with “wild and staring eyes”, just like me and presumably all nutcase Lejogers! I had walked all the way from Land’s End to Scotland without encountering a single Lejoger, and then two in one day! Now five years later (I've just checked. I met him on 19th June 2011!), here I am walking down the coastal path and who should I bump into? What are the chances? In a country of more than 60 million people! It makes Leicester City for the Premier League Title seem a sure thing by comparison!

He asked me if I had seen any other Lejogers on my way “south” on the coastal path, which I hadn't. He told me that this time he wouldn't be going down Dere Street but would go all the way to Kirk Yetholm at the end of the Pennine Way, and that then he would approach John O’Groats from Cape Wrath to avoid the traffic on the dreaded A9. I assured him that if I were to do the trip again, I would do exactly the same! (Don’t worry, Veronica. I may have wild and staring eyes, but he is single and I have no intention of doing it all again. Yet. )

This whole strange coincidence capped off what has been a fascinating day. My guidebook had argued that it would be an ordinary day, but I've learned to take that lot with a pinch of salt. If you aren't hanging by your fingernails to a cliff face or leaping up and down some improbably high hill, then you can’t be having fun! Well, I do understand. After all, it takes a certain type of person to write these guidebooks!

Earlier in the day, I had a very pleasant interlude with Rachel, who is also doing the SWCP in stages. It is hard to believe that she is the mother of a 22 year-old daughter, so young and fit is she. She caught up with me and we walked together for a while. She told me that she had done a degree part-time, while bringing up her baby daughter and working full-time. I can scarcely believe that this is possible! No wonder she finds walking the SWCP a piece of cake! She now has a job in social research, and she was particularly interesting on the subject of university fees on which she is currently working. She told me that after an initial decline, enrolment is back up to pre-fee levels, but that there is evidence that university professors are responding to demands for better teaching. She couldn't comment on the rumour that fees are about to rise yet again. We parted company at the edge of Barnstaple. I was resolved to case the joint, whereas she was pushing on to Westwood Ho! this evening (my destination for tomorrow night!).

My detour to Barnstaple was rewarded by a fascinating visit to St Anne’s Chapel, a Grade-I listed building that dates from the 14th century and had been a ‘charnel house’ (a place for storing bones), closed down by Henry VIII. It became a Grammar School and educated some interesting characters including John Gay, a literary associate of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. He wrote “The Beggar’s Banquet”, a satirical look at the politics and society of the day. It was produced in 1728 in London and was a runaway success, breaking all records. It was said to have made “the rich very gay, and Gay very rich”. I was given a personal conducted tour by two gentlemen, one old, the other young, who clearly lacked customers, and seemed delighted to accommodate me. I paid a brief visit to the Guildhall and the Pannier Market, which conveniently is open on Tuesdays, and which seemed to my untutored eye to contain a superior range of junk. It turns out that Barnstaple was one of the first four boroughs in England, granted the right to mint coins by none other than King Athelstan. They must have regarded the Normans as Johnny-come-lately!

Back on the trail, after a boring bit of straight and level ex-railway, I encountered the remarkable Fremington Quay. This unremarkable ex-rail station and quayside was by the mid-19th century apparently the most important port between Land’s End and Bristol, partly because the River Taw was silting up and the quays at Barnstaple grew increasingly unusable. (I assume the historian who vouchsafed this information was completely ignoring Wales on the other side of the Bristol Channel, but so be it!)

Just beyond the quay, I encountered a major reconstruction effort restoring the footpath across a minor tributary to the Taw. I could hardly believe the huge and professional scale of the refurbishment, just for a footpath, even if it has some historical significance!  Someone has to pay for all this! Clearly, the public sector hasn't got the money, so they will have to borrow it. But then the private sector in the UK isn't going to lend the money either. The balance of payments has reached a record negative imbalance, which can only be balanced by the UK borrowing money from overseas to compensate for the difference between imports and exports.

My worry is that this can’t go on indefinitely. It has all the hallmarks of the South Sea bubble or the Dutch tulip-mania. Why should the poor in the third world continue to finance fripperies such as beautiful footpath bridges in the rich world? As I departed that fascinating scene, I resolved to write a letter to the Chinese President to thank him personally for indirectly financing the restoration of the Fremington footbridge so that Patrick and I might proceed unimpeded.

I understand though, that private capital is flooding out of China ahead of an anticipated currency crash. When that happens, there may not be much appetite any more for lending money to the UK.

Maybe that would be a good time to head for John O'Groats!!

A swan and her cygnets on a quiet wetland below Braunton

The assault course at the Royal Marines base at Chivenor (apologies for drizzle on the lens!)

A footpath to infinity!

The improbable Braunton Inn

Queen Victoria presiding over some poor, unfortunate. homeless people, taking shelter in an ornate building at the entrance to Barnstaple

Long Bridge, my route over the River Taw; the reason for my long deviation

A rather elegant Victorian tearoom in Barnstaple

The Guildhall

The Pannier market

St Anne's Chapel

My enthusiastic and very kind hosts. They couldn't do enough for me

The remarkable ceiling of the 14th Century building

Back on the trail, an Oyster-catcher

And then Patrick suddenly appears, like an alien from outer space!

Here's the picture I took of him on Dere Street in the Scottish Borders on 19th June 2011. Same style of shorts, trainers, and sticks. Us walkers don't change. Much

Is that a Hitler moustache on the poor girl? Clearly the graffiti artist wasn't getting on with his girlfriend!

The sheep seem oblivious to the the military hovercraft flying by!

The Braunton Inn from the other side of the estuary!  Not much change then!

Fremington Quay Railway station. Such a remarkable history. Now famous for cream teas

Fremington Quay itself

The incredible effort to refurbish the footpath bridge!

I searched for Prince everywhere, but couldn't find him. These guys were sympathetic, though.

A speck of sunshine on the River Torridge at the end of day. The forecast for tomorrow isn't good....