Travel Blogging Archives - Page 24 of 40

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

Day 4 on the South West Coast Path and 551 miles to go.

Posted on April 14, 2012November 14, 2016

I’m writing this in my room above the noisiest bar in town 🙁 the charming bar maid assures me she will have the place cleared by 11.30pm but then the hot rodders start laying down rubber outside all night long. So probably wasn’t the best place to pick 🙁 after a 25 mile walk.

The problem with todays three stages is that I’ve walked 25 miles to progress (after I walk another 3 tomorrow to Appledore) by about 7 miles. All due to the huge River Taw estuary and it’s military areas and the lack of the River Torridge Ferry until 1.30pm tomorrow.

The walk itself is very flat, mainly on the old railway line so in reality I should have just taken the morning bus for 30 mins 🙂 and continued from Appledore.

Biggest discovery of the day for me was the sheer number of surfers, at first they looked like birds on the water.

Tonight T-Mobile decided I had reached 80% of some unspecified target, so that they would no longer allow tethering. That after only using it last night for uploading my pics and using Skype. It really is quite staggering how the government allows the operators to get away with such crap service, maybe they should invoke the Monopolies Commission if it still exists! The coverage is abysmal and their internet policy is based on some unspecified “fair usage”. Compare that to Turkey’s excellent 3G coverage and the ability to buy 1G of data cards for about £15.

All the stats are at the usual place and the route is on Everytrail :
South West Coast Path: Croyde to Bideford at EveryTrail

The pictures will be at Google+