travel blog Archives - Page 29 of 39

The South West Coast Path – First week

Posted on April 17, 2012April 18, 2012

Today marks the first 7 days of walking The South West Coast Path. The Path starts in Minehead goes along the coast to Lands End then returns along The english Channel to end in Poole Harbour a distance of 630 miles.

In my first week I’ve covered 109 miles according to The trail Guide 2012 which I’m using. This is 17% of the trail which predicts it will take me about 40days.

According to Fitbit I’ve planted my feet on Terra Firma 279,604 times in 7 days or just under 40,000 steps a day 🙂

Scarpa GTX sole measurements The worse casualty of all those steps seem to be my Scarpa boots.

As you can see over 6mm of rubber has disappeared from the outside edge of both heels. It will be interesting to see what the next 1/4 million steps does to them.

The walk scenery is really stunning, the only disappointment has been between Croyde Bay and Bideford, where I think a bus would have saved a days walking and not taken away from the walk at all.

The first week (apart from today) I managed to keep out of the bad weather. But the forecast is none to good for tomorrow onwards.

All the accommodation has been very clean and pleasant, some even tending towards grand.

Time for bed now. Full statistics are here

Day7 on the South West Coast Path – Hartland Quay to Bude

Posted on April 17, 2012May 23, 2014

506 miles to the end.

Boy, what weather! My head is till throbbing from my ears taking such a beating, at one point I had to hang onto the wooden post, it must have been a mini whirl wind, Rain squalls kept me busy covering the camera. The worst was the hailstorm, no doubt unleashed by the Spooks at the GCHQ place I was looking at at the time near Coombe.

The terrain didn’t help, like walking on a roller coaster as you can see from below.

Unsurprisingly I didn’t see a single walker all day nor for that matter where there any tea / ice cream places.

However, the views are superb and on a less windy, warmer day I can imagine it been very pleasant indeed.

The stats of the day are here and my Google+ pictures are here

my favourite bird today is this boy racer who was chasing his mate out over The Atlantic at very low altitude.

My Evertrail is up as well, although due to the Gmail glitch earlier today (and maybe me resetting the password after it) means I can’t get Everytrail to grab the photos from Picasa.
The South West Coast Path – Hartland Quay to Bude at EveryTrail

Day 6 on the South West Coast Path – 521 miles to go.

Posted on April 16, 2012May 28, 2019

A bit of a slow and tiring walk today especially that I only covered 10 miles 🙁 The hills are now very short and very steep with quite a few having steps. I find the steps really tiring as they are rarely ever made with a decent going/riser ratio (The stair going to riser ratio (2R + G) within the range of 550 – 700 assists to promote a suitable gait pattern) plus they are very uneven, both things make them much harder to negotiate than proper steps or even a simple mud/grass slope.

I’ve yet to bump into any other long distance walkers most I’ve met are just doing small circular walks, the lady in the couple I met today just so reminded me of Annette Crosbie,but then I do have Prosopagnosia.

I finally arrived at the Hartland Quay Hotel which is the end of Section 12 in The Guide, the next section to Bude is labelled Severe and takes 8.5 hours, no accommodation seems to be on the route so I thought it wise to make it a short day and stop. They gave me room 7 which has a lovely Bay window looking towards Lundy. It has BS WiFi as can only be expected in our third world country, who would have thought that it could be as chronic. Even though the fibre optic TAT 14 running at 1.87Tera bits comes ashore about 10 miles from here at Widemouth Bay! This area should have the worlds fastest broadband!!

Oh, and the wretched Canon D550 has started playing up again, flash not popping up and the lens having a nervous twitch trying to focus itself even when not requested plus the screen not allowing access to the main menu’s. Maybe SLRs & walking & me is not a good combo.

Today’s stats are up in my google doc here and pics on Google+ here and here i sthe Everytrail:
The South West Coast Path – Clovelly to Hartland Quay at EveryTrail

Day 5 on the South West Coast Path and 531 miles to go.

Posted on April 15, 2012May 28, 2019

Oh dear looking at the guide today, it says today walk was Week 2 Day 1 whereas its only my Week 1 day 5 🙂

What a spectacular day today was, perfect clear blue sky 🙂 Cold so no water required and scenery to die for, such stunning villages as Appledore, Buck’s Mills & Clovelly even poor Westward Ho! has it’s attractions 🙂 although the folks living behind the big blocks of new flats can’t be to happy about having sea views been replaced by such developments.

My favourite sign of all time is the one above that is actually positive imploring you to enjoy rather than the modern signs which tell you all the things that you can’t do.

Tody I met an interesting couple in the lovely bluebell woods who promised they woud leave a comment 🙂 sorry to bore you with my diatribe on The National Trust vis a vis the above sign.

Jenny & Debbie I will apply a more rigorous approach to my fish & chips and add the price and some * rating. Hopefully before going to see Rick Stein in Padstow. Last nights at Mr Chips in Bideford out currently the winners.

The pictures of today are here on Google+ The stats as always are here and the actual walk on my GPS is on Everytrail:
South West Coast Path – Bideford to Clovelly at EveryTrail