Journal:
Got up at 7am
and took my time getting ready to leave, chatting
with Beat over breakfast. Left the Hostel
about 8:30am and found my way back to the Coast Path
via a farm road and crossing a field on a cold and
overcast morning. The Coast Path mostly
bordered farm fields with cliffs to the left,
although it sometimes strayed inland. It began
drizzling, but was not unpleasant, and although
there were still climbs, the cliffs were not as high
and the ascents and descents not so steep. One
of my healing blisters was causing me to limp
because of the pain, so I stopped and applied a
number of bandaids. This seemed to do the
trick and movement was easier thereafter.
One early highlight was
spotting a family of foxes, including five pups,
moving along the side of the cliff edge. One
false move by a pup and it would have fallen about
100m. I made reasonably good progress round
Hartland Point, but realised that I would not reach
Clovelly, my target for a late lunch, until very
late. As the sky cleared, it became a very
pleasant day and the Path was mostly easy walking.
The terrain had become "softer" with more vegetation
on the cliffs and plenty of sections through woods
carpeted with bluebells. I finally reached the
road down to Clovelly and realised that the Coast
Path didn't actually descend to the village, that
Beat had told me was a "must see". So I made
the long walk down a steep back road to the village,
that only cars with permits were allowed to be used.
The village lived up to its "Chocolate Box"
description with a tiny little fishing harbour and
historic houses cascading down the hillside along
the cobbled narrow main street where no powered
vehicles were allowed. The only drawback was
that the place was crawling with tourists. Of
course, I was one too! I climbed back up to
the top of the village and had a quickCornish Pastie
and coffee in the visitors centre adjacent to the
car park. By the time I was ready to leave it
was nearly 4pm and I had to decide whether to look
for a B&B in the nearby Higher Clovelly or keep
walking and free camp along the Path. I
decided to look for a B&B, but missed the track
junction to the village and went to plan B.
The late afternoon walking was very pleasant,
despite sore feet, and alternated between woods,
fields and a little cliff edge.
I didn't find a spot to
camp until 7:30pm, and quickly set up. Not
much for dinner tonight!
