Travel Blogging Archives - Page 23 of 40

Day 10 South West Coast Path – Trebarwith Strand (Treknow) to Rock (Padstow)

Posted on April 21, 2012

166.8 miles walked 463.2 miles to go

Weather wise todays walk started in much better conditions with spells of sunshine and very low wind but then later it deteriorated to heavy showers. I met my first real walkers today, a couple with their dog walking from Lands End to John O’Groats 🙂 So still no South West Coastpathers.

Still very much a roller coaster in terms of ascent & descent with some very steep ones.

The highlight was stopping at a cafe in Port Isaac to be told it was the ephemera centre for Doc Martin goodies, the owner was pretty astounded that I didn’t know who he was! Even though people travel from the USA etc to visit the place. He even told me where the home/surgery was, right on the coast path. Wikipedia says this Doc Martin is a British television comedy drama series starring Martin Clunes in the title role.^]The show is set in the fictional seaside village of Portwenn and filmed on location in the village of Port Isaac,Cornwall, United Kingdom, with most interior scenes shot in a converted local barn.

Once again the evil creators of the route had me walking in a tight loop around Pentire point adding a few extra miles which after a day of climbing endless steep steps was the reason I arrived at Rock Ferry point to see the ferry just moving out 🙂 I twittered that I had missed the last ferry 🙂 @davidanthony5 instantly replied about getting a bus from up the road to Wadebridge and then onto Padstow, which I did. So a 5 minute ferry crossing turned into a 2 hour epic 🙁 So check ferry times !

Tonight I’m staying with Sally’s uncle in St Merryn who will give me a lift into Padstow tomorrow to resume the walk.

Today’s stats are here pictures here and Everytrail here

South West Coast Path – Treknow to Rock at EveryTrail

Day 9 South West Coast Path – Crackington Haven to Trebarwith Strand (Treknow)

Posted on April 20, 2012April 20, 2012

149 miles walked 481 miles to go (Average 16.5 miles a day)

A thank you to Keith and his 14 year od son for his email about the walk 🙂

A fine walking day today a bit breezy with a cold wind, so ideal walking weather. I must have met at least 20 day walkers, still yet to meet any one who is walking even for a week.

I left the Coombe Martin Inn at 9.30ish after a reasonable breakfast and a great nights sleep. Certainly a place to revisit with tripod etc to capture those sunsets over the sea.

Great walk over High Cliff, nowhere near as bad as the Guide makes out and along to the The Harbour Light Tea Rooms for scones & tea. The tea rooms now fully restored after the disastrous flood in 2004 then onwards to Tintagel where the footpath became quite busy for the first mile. With the Rocky Valley as an highlight. Finally arriving in Tintagel and the thronging masses. I quickly escaped and continued onto Trebarwith Strand to be met with the shock of a lifetime. The Port William PH was wanting £90 a night for b&b quickly reduced to £80 for a singleton, I quickly showed him my heels. Walking up the hill I checked out The Mill Houses Inn, a similar story after much pressure he came down to £69 so up the hill again, all the b&bs were closed. I rounded the corner to find the Atlantic View Hotel, entering the building was like stepping back to the real England we oldies cherish 🙂 in fact I must confess it reminded me of Fawlty Towers, However, Rosemary & John are the epitome of professionalism, they only did full board but for a very reasonable price of £68 a night. Including a 5 course dinner (totally amazing food too) + cheese,s. All I can say is WOW See the header for my dinner 🙂

The days stats are here as usual the pictures are Google+ here and the Everytrail is here (no pics yet again).
South West Coast Path – Crackington Haven to Trebarwithstrand (Treknow) at EveryTrail

Cracking onto Crackington Haven only 495 miles to go.

Posted on April 18, 2012August 26, 2021

495 miles to go on The South West Coast Path.

Firstly many thanks to all the new visitors that came from this tweet:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/swcoastpath/status/192577773414518785″]

and also many thanks to Betty & Chris for the lovely email sent after I met them in the woods atop Clovelly

Today started of very miserable & wet (both me & and the weather 🙂 can’t say I enjoyed Bude at all! Plaice & chips last night was ugh and a garret bedroom with no room to stand up in the shower, might be OK if you are 4′ but not for me 🙁 However, things started to improve at breakfast, the kippers & poached egg were excellent.

The day was once again amazingly windy especially at the 500/130 bench on top of Dizzard Point (wonder if it got his name from making folks dizzy) where I nearly was blown over! Thank goodness for my sticks. The scenery is totally stunning.

I tried to find the landing point for TAT-14 our umbilical cord to the rest of the world in Widemouth bay but it is not to be found anywhere not even any notices warning about submerged cables.

The section as always, has many steep coombs. Here is the profile:

I dropped down into Crackinton Haven and decided I had heard enough wind for the day so I settled for a pint and room at The Coombe Martin Inn, room 6 has fab views, to watch the sunset, over the bay and it’s own terrace. Real luxury compared to last night. Food is excellent too. To top it all I just missed the last torrential downpor of the day 🙂

As usual the stats are in my google docs and photos on google+ and the actual trail walked is over on Everytrail:

South West Coast Path – Bude to Crackington Haven at EveryTrail

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