Day 42: Bigbury to Salcombe

Strong sunshine with a chilly northerly
Distance covered today: 24.4km (15.2mi)
Last night's B&B: Holywell B&B
% Complete: Cumulative distance: 74.0%:  788.2km
Total Ascent/Total Descent: 890m/ 974m
GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 42(click!)

Today was a good day to be alive! The weather was superb for walking and for my walk in particular. The route was one of the most spectacularly satisfying of any of those I have done on the Coast Path and although arduous in places, I just didn’t mind. Perhaps I was energised because this is the last day of the current trip? Or maybe it was because the condition of the path was simply excellent and in places so magnificently engineered that I was really amazed. The brilliant weather conditions may also have helped. For most of the day, I had a chilly north-westerly wind blowing me along from behind as I headed south east. As I rounded Bolt Head, the path wended its way below the upper extent of the cliffs, so I walked along in windless conditions. Meanwhile the sun shone strongly all day long. These were extraordinary conditions! Where have I experienced such warm, strong sunshine accompanying such a chilly wind? Betty’s Bay came to mind, and in a strange way, that enhanced my enjoyment.  

The day started unpromisingly enough with a rearing and plunging road walk along those dangerous Devon roads, but two things surprised me. The homicidal drivers of my earlier acquaintance on LEJOG seem to have slithered off elsewhere. I met only genuinely careful and good-tempered drivers who invariably stopped and had to be waved on vigorously as I shrank against those solid clover-covered walls. Then, out of the blue, I came across a passing place which I recognised! How completely incredible! I didn’t even know I had been on that road before, but the evidence was there. Once upon a time, Veronica and I were driving down to Bigbury and a homicidal maniac forced us off the road resulting in a fatally punctured tyre. We stopped at this very passing place to replace it with the spare. I know because I recognised a rock on the side of the passing-place where I had rested the spare as I wrestled with the bolts on the injured wheel. What are the chances?? OK, so it’s not the same as discovering Australopithecus Africanus, but recognising an inconspicuous passing-place on a road down which you thought you had never been before was way up there for me!

My next task was to cross the River Avon by ferry. In planning this trip I had understood that, rather eccentrically, the ferry operator didn’t work on Sundays, a day which I would have thought would be quite good for him in the tourist business, but as I Iater discovered, he’s been operating this ferry for twelve years, so presumably he understands his market. I had had to adjust my entire schedule to accommodate the Sunday curfew!  Also, a little more controversially, he operates his ferry from 10am to 11am and from 3pm to 4pm, and that’s it! The business of hailing his ferry is also a little old-world. The instruction is to wave your arms vigorously and shout. There is a mobile number, but no signal.

When I arrived, I discovered a rather taciturn and somewhat morose, part-time, long-distance walker trying to attract the ferryman’s attention at five minutes to ten. I told him my life history and he grunted. When we eventually successfully reached the other shore, he disappeared with alacrity and I was pleased to see him go, but unfortunately he was walking too slowly for me. I could see he was doing his best to outpace me and decided that only thing to do was to speed past him, wish him well and disappear up the path. I didn’t see him again. Most satisfying!

Once I had circumnavigated a golf-course and a rather forgettable village called Thurlestone, the magic began. I passed two little villages named enigmatically Outer and Inner Hope and rounded Bolt Tail. The path was sublime, the views back along the coast, magnificent. True I had to scale Bolberry Down, but thereafter the National Trust has constructed a path that is literally wheelchair friendly. It is another path worthy of a special visit for those less keen on the roller coasters.

As I approached Bolt Head, the Path remembered itself and bucked and reared as becomes it, but shortly afterwards, I was entertained to the best bit of cliff-walking that I have experienced in the UK, a path round the vertical cliffs of Sharp Tor. Inevitably, the path was cut by a toff in the nineteenth century to give access to Bolt Head and is known as the Courtenay Walk. It is simply magnificent!

As I approached Salcombe, I passed the South Sands Ferry, which I had planned to take into Salcombe as a reward for the end of this trip, but I was enjoying the walk so much that I decided to walk into town instead, a decision which I immediately regretted as the road bucked and reared just as much as the path and my B&B turned out to be at the top of the cliff! It did allow me the pleasure of passing the castle, very near where my very good friend, Richard B was born and I thought of him fondly as I passed.

I should cease and desist at this point, but not so fast. Here is a graph I have constructed showing the progression of Lumpiness Quotients as I have completed this trip. OK, so its what I do; so humour me! 

It turns out, referring back to the blog texts for the days concerned that the lumpiness quotient is a reasonable indicator of the individual day's difficulty. I need to do the analysis over the whole of the Path to see if this remains true, but it seems to me that as time passes on a particular trip, my sense of enjoyment increases, irrespective of the lumpiness quotient. Is this because I get fitter as I get to the end? Or is it just because I just get into the routine and all subsidiary issues start to fade?

I wonder if I will ever know? Thank you so much for your company and I hope to accompany you next year on my final trip of the Coast Path

The scene of the blowout. It's that stone on the side at the top left that gave it away!

Burgh Island from above

The Avon River estuary. Ferry required!

And here it is!

Last view of Burgh Island from the East

A lovely arch rock

An impressive 85 metre bridge across a waterway esteemed for its birdlife

There were a number of birders watching, but I was in a hurry!

The Devon Flag. Nationalism breaking out everywhere.....

An interesting inscription. I didn't know that the Royal Family had been Masons

An incredible piece of natural art. Who is that guy?

Gorgeous cliffs in the sunshine

Bolt Head ahead!

A first look at the Salcombe Sound

And then the incredible Courtenay Path. Look hard and you will see the path curving round just below the vertical slope. It was awe-inspiring!

Looking back towards Bolt Head. A tranquil sea in the lee of the brutal northerlies

The Courtenay Path continued

And then down a cultured path, a first view of Salcombe

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Through a forest flanked by wild garlic

The South Sands Ferry with its unique tractor assisting passengers to board. I resisted its blandishments and walked up and down into town!

The Salcombe Castle, or Fort Charles, was the last place to hold out in favour of King Charles I against the Parliamentary forces of Oliver Cromwell, especially after Plymouth had opted for the Parliamentarians. Ultimately, when all hope was lost, the garrison was allowed to withdraw with their colours flying.

Day 41: Noss Mayo to Bigbury

Weather: Mostly cloudy with a very cold north easterly in my teeth
Distance covered today: 22.1km (13.7mi)
Last night's B&B: The Cellars
% Complete: Cumulative distance: 71.7%:  763.8km
Total Ascent/Total Descent: 727m/ 655m
GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 41(click!)

This was a day of three thirds! The first involved an absolutely spectacular and really easy walk. This was followed by a typically lumpy approach to an estuary and its tricky crossing, and finally a climb on a sylvan path and along back roads to tonight’s B&B. All in all, it was a most interesting and satisfying day.

As will become clear, I was under time pressure this morning, and I left my unusual B&B in something of a rush. The parting niceties with my hostesses took longer than usual (I’ll come back to that!) and, feeling that I was now behind schedule, I paid scant heed to a sign virtually outside the garden and went charging off down to sea-level on the wrong path. I was doubly annoyed, because I had just read in my guidebook that I would initially be enjoying a level walk along Revelstoke Drive, so why was I struggling down a rocky path to the sea?? I turned round, started again and was soon speeding along the right path. This magnificently engineered road was cut by local fishermen at the behest of Lord Revelstoke in the nineteenth century so he could show off his magnificent estate to his guests. While one may question the ethics, the result is a triumph for the Coast Path. In fact the views are so magnificent and the walking so easy, that it is well worth a substantial deviation from wherever you might be in the South West to spend some time walking here. There are a number of car parks in the area to facilitate such a venture.

I careered along at almost 6kph, about double my usual Coast Path walking speed while simultaneously taking in the matchless vistas of this high-level road, passing numerous runners along the way who were doubtless also aware of its charms. Then all of a sudden, things changed! Lord Revelstoke’s road charged off inland, and the Coast Path, as if once more free to do its worst, started plunging and rearing with gay abandon. Initially I did a little inland circuit, because I could plainly see that the path was venomously dropping to sea-level only immediately to rise back up to the cliff-top, while a perfectly serviceable contour path could avoid the problem. This did involve a brief spell on a road, and that is anathema to the Path, but not to me! We met again all too soon, and I was ducking and diving all over again at a considerably reduced speed, but still roughly on schedule.

By now you will probably have realised that the reason for all this scheduling was that I was going to have to cross a river at the right time. In fact, the River Erme is the first river that I have come across on any of the National Trails in England, Scotland and Wales that cannot be crossed except by wading. You may recall in a piece a few days ago, I mentioned that I had been persuaded by Veronica to bring my “squelchers” (beaten-up old walking shoes) along, because she felt that wearing them would protect my feet from sharp objects as I waded across the river. The problem is that the “toe-crushers” (my useless normal walking boots) had been wreaking such havoc on my toes that I have been exclusively walking in my squelchers every day since, with boots confined to my cabin baggage. I had in fact intended to wear the toe-crushers today until I reached the river, swap them for the squelchers and then replace them afterwards, on Veronica’s strong advice.

Now, please don’t tell her, because she will be hopping mad, but I just couldn’t do it. I decided to wear the squelchers and wade barefoot across the river! I had received positive advice from one or two locals although I was surprised how many had no idea! A waitress in the pub last night told me that she had lived here all her life, but had never even heard of the river!

After an initial approach to the river at its mouth at Meadowsfoot Beach, where I observed that though the surface was sandy, there appeared to be too many deep gullies, I followed the official path upstream to Wonwell Beach and a crossing between two slipways. In the event, the pebbly crossing was relatively easy, if a little painful on my sensitive feet, and I was soon sunning myself on the opposite bank, while Whatsapping Veronica about the successful transit and rewarding myself with chocolate, (but not telling her about the squelchers!)

The remainder of the walk involved a strenuous climb through a lovely wood, very attractive in its new leaf, strewn with bluebells, red campion and white stitchwort (get me!). Then I was walking along back roads through attractive thatched villages with Dartmoor glowering in the distance. I had been completely unsuccessful in finding a B&B along the coast at Bigbury-on-Sea. Everything there had been booked for months and the big one, Burgh Island Hotel, wouldn’t accept a single night booking. We had been royally hosted there by good friends in the last year and I knew it was rather too posh for your itinerant Path walker. I have promised to take Veronica back there some time in the future, and if any of you lot break my confidence, that may well turn out to be sooner rather than later!!

Talking of B&Bs, the last few nights have been an exercise in contrasts. Given that I selected them almost exclusively on the basis of location, with very little choice because most were fully booked, I couldn’t have chosen a wider variety. The old-world, slightly tired elegance of the Whitsand Bay Hotel with its refined clientele made me think of the hotels my parents favoured many years ago. Men literally retired to the bar after dinner (though of course there is no smoking), while the ladies took coffee in the sitting room. The hotel had once been a mansion in a completely different location and was rebuilt, brick by brick, in its current magnificent location.

The following night, in Plymouth, Jury’s Inn was a completely predictable, urban, businessperson’s hotel, offering a highly standardised service in every area. I have stayed in countless examples of the ilk, and I would find it hard to distinguish one from the other. I could just imagine the metrics being used by distant management to measure performance. Those metrics would though have failed to quantify the slightly sad and distant look in the eye of one of the receptionists. I told him that he seemed to me to be the busiest person I had seen all day! He looked at me in disbelief, and then broke out into a huge grin! It was possibly the first personal comment, let alone compliment, he had received all day! The room was perfectly comfortable and the WiFi excellent!

Such cannot be said of my stay last night in Noss Mayo. You may recall that I had said that I had found it very difficult to find accommodation in the area because everything was booked for the wedding. Not so the Cellars! I was greeted by my slightly distracted hostess who was going out for the evening. She directed me to the shack out back that would be my residence for the night, across her lovely garden that was obviously prime in her priorities! After initially being a little set back by the chaos in the shack, I realised that it was actually quite comfortable in a chaotic sort of way, though it certainly wasn’t catering for standard B&B. I learned how to operate the boiler; I discovered the oven, dishwasher, and fridge (with my breakfast on a tray inside). This is do-it-yourself B&B.

Of course there was no TV or WiFi! On enquiry, I was told that there was WiFi in the main house and if I confined myself to the outer garden room, I was welcome to use it (with the unsaid question being why would I ever want to?!)  Later as I wrote my blog, I heard the strains of classical music coming from the interior of the house. It transpired that my hostess had two sisters and a husband visiting and they were doing what you do; listen to music on a record-player. On my return to my room, I discovered a set of early seventies LPs and a serviceable record player. I went to bed listening to Art Garfunkel and Joan Baez. I went to sleep feeling strangely peaceful, and ironically more in connection with my own youth than in any of the previous hostelries!

I have passed off my own LP record collection and record player to my younger daughter, who insists that the vinyl sound still rules! Your digital correspondent has always resisted this idea, but last night, as I went to sleep, those sounds were so redolent of my youth that I had to accept some uncertainty.

My conclusion though was that I am beginning to have to accept that other older people are of my generation. I can’t pretend any longer that I’m younger! 

The garden in front of my shed

The lovely roofing of the Cellars B&B

The start of the Revelstoke Park road

Such a beautiful view!

Looking ahead to the next headland beyond Bigbury

Such gorgeous views from the Revelstoke Path

And back the other way!

That's Burgh Island Hotel at full zoom

Such lovely views!

The Erme River appears

And then I see this fellow running along the path carrying a bottle of bubbly. I yelled at him to explain himself! He said, "It's OK, it happens!"

A sheen of bluebells in the woods

Me crossing the Erme! Cold feet!

The successfully traversed river

And the beautiful wood beyond

Despite which, some mud as a challenge to my non-waterproof squelchers!

That's Dartmoor in the distance!

Beautiful thatched cottages in the lovely inland villages

Another one!

Day 40: Plymouth to Noss Mayo

Weather: Cloudy with cold South Easterly
Distance covered today: 15.7km (9.8mi)
Last night's B&B: Jury's Inn
% Complete: Cumulative distance: 69.6%:  741.7km
Total Ascent/Total Descent: 441m/ 408m
GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 40(click!)

On balance, I have to admit that Plymouth was a bit of a disappointment. These things are always relative and I had had, I suppose, unrealistically high expectations. As a boy, I had learned that the Spanish Armada had been sighted from Plymouth Hoe, that Sir Francis Drake had set out on his epic voyage from Plymouth and that it had been a major contributor to the success of the D-Day landings. I expected to find a city combining its unique history and really lovely geography into a vibrant post-industrial city, attracting entrepreneurial talent from the whole of the South-West and beyond.

What I saw in my short visit, was a rather tired city; a bit on its uppers. I lost count of the number of vacant shops, cheap take-away oriental food shops and fish ’n chips shops. True, in the Barbican near the waterfront there was some evidence of an artisan culture of coffee and stylish bakes, but nothing like the excitement and panache of the same thing in London or Brooklyn.  It had little of the zest of the towns I have been visiting around the South West coast. I suppose the obvious point is that the dramatic withdrawal of funding from the Royal Navy has had its impact disproportionately on Plymouth, and this may have had a dispiriting effect on the local population as a whole.

I did, though still find my visit rather moving. I spent some time at the huge memorial commemorating all the sailors who had lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars and whose only grave was the sea. They came from all over the British Empire. The vast number of names was overwhelming. The senselessness of it all saddened me. I saw a plaque commemorating the death of a grandson of Queen Victoria, a Prince of Shleswig-Holstein, no less, killed in Pretoria in 1900. It was close to the memorial remembering the South African sailors who had died in the great wars, fighting for Britain, just a few years later. What idiocy! I had just finished reading an article in The Economist slamming Jeremy Corbyn for his pacifism, saying that it made the likelihood of future armed conflict all the greater, especially as he is almost certain to win the next election. I was depressed and confused.

On the way out of the city this morning, I ascended the cliffs to the vast array of forts and other military constructs. These were intended to protect Plymouth from attack both by sea and by land from the nineteenth century onwards and are now by and large, derelict. I came across a sign (pictured below) saying that as a result of “continued vandalism” it had become necessary to prevent “all public access” to the area. That absolutely did it for me! I was furious!  I thought of all the sacrifices made by prior generations from all over the world for this country, and now their memory is being desecrated by uncaring youths.

As I climbed down from my high dudgeon and indeed from the high cliffs to what became a hugely enjoyable and relatively easy transit of the low cliffs, I reflected that as a youth I too had totally rejected the ethos of the times in South Africa, I had to admit that I had no idea at all about what motivated a Janner vandal.

It got me thinking about the first time I chose actively to go against authority’s specific instructions. We were out sailing on a large lake on a yacht owned by a very good friend of my Dad’s. It had been a long, hot day and a lot of alcohol had been consumed by the party of friends on board. As I was helming the yacht and the only youngster there, I hadn’t drunk much, and I kept suggesting that as it was getting dark, we really should be heading for home as we had no night navigation equipment. Eventually, the owner agreed and gave me a bearing to steer which he said would get us back to port. I knew that there was a rocky shoal in the middle of the lake and I was actually following another yacht which I could just make out in the darkly gathering gloom, but which the older generation just couldn’t see. My logic was that if the other yacht didn’t crash into the shoal, neither would we.

 My father’s friend was obviously getting angry with me and my father, really keen to keep the peace, was appalled that I was refusing to obey his friend’s specific instruction, or to surrender the helm. The standoff continued and I held my course. We made it safely back to port and everyone was civil enough, but something significant had changed in the relationship.

In retrospect, I can’t really say why I refused to take instruction on that day. The chances of hitting the shoal were quite low, and we did have lifesaving equipment and a rubber dinghy, so why not just take the line of least resistance? Veronica might argue that mulish, self-righteous obstinacy is the key personality trait here, the same thing that is making me walk unendingly around this unforgiving coastline.

Possibly true, but as I considered that sign capitulating to the vandals, I just wondered whether there might have been a way of channelling all their aggression and energy into renewing Plymouth itself and turning it into a jewel of the South West. Too much to hope for?

My first ferry of the day, from the Mayflower Steps across the Cattewater to Mount Batten. Typically, the ferry has been designed so that passengers can't see out when they are sitting, and aren't allowed to stand up when the boat is moving! I pointed this out and was given short shrift!

Intriguingly, a new set of Devonian waymarks for the Coast Path. Solid Rock! This one enigmatically with a flying boat on it!?!

Built between 1646 and 1652, this tower was built as a fortification against the threat of war with the Dutch. It was named after William Batten who had commanded the parliamentary navy against King Charles I. The walls are made of local limestone and are about a metre thick. It is similar to Cromwell's Castle on Tresco on the Isles of Scilly, where my mum-in-law sent Veronica and I for our honeymoon

I passed an earnest group of volunteers, picking plastic off the beach. Theirs is a big job and I'm not sure they know how many miles it is to Minehead! Still, got to start somewhere, and they are the antidote to vandals!

Another muscular waymark!

And another! This one had to be circumnavigated to see the whole path explicitly stated!

Drake Island

Another waymark....

From stone to metal! At Jenny cliff

Joe, on the ferry from Cawsand to Plymouth told me that his firm had poured millions of tons of rock into this strange breakwater, which sits uniquely in the middle of the sound, open at each end. (Inevitably, there's a fort in the middle). The logic must have to do with the protection of Sutton Harbour from the prevailing seas 

Enough said.......

Gigs out training in the bay

Part of the vandalised military structures. These were shooting ranges

More decrepit military structures. They are everywhere!

Rame Head and its chapel at full zoom on the other side of the bay

An absolutely wonderful level path with an extraordinarily low lumpiness quotient!

The Great Mew Stone above the gorse

Wembury Church and the source of major hassle for me. I couldn't find accommodation for tonight, because there was a wedding scheduled for today and all accommodation in the area had been booked for months. In the end, I was lucky, or I would have had to scrap the last few days of my trip 

By absolute sheer coincidence, I came across the guests as they waited for the bride and groom to arrive. They were unsympathetic!

Approaching my next ferry across the Yealm at Warren Point. It is a really beautiful estuary

Finally, some bluebells for Bridgy. This has been an awful year for bluebells because of the cold weather, but I couldn't resist this shot 

My ferry awaits! Thank goodness! He operates only intermittently! My B&B tonight as a result of the wedding, has no WiFi or TV in my room, but it does have an ancient record player and some favourite LPs from the seventies. That will cheer me up when I get there!