What better way to start a days walking is there than by not walking, instead a gentle sail across the river to Kingswear got us on our way.

Having made significant efforts over the last few days Mrs R decided on option B (bus) today for the first part of the journey to Brixham which with hindsight was an extremely cunning plan!  Leaving Steve to do the 11 miles first part of the walk, classified as ‘strenuous’ in the guide, it certainly lived up to that description with no less than 7 or 8 big climbs.  The coastal path has a number of different methods of inflicting this punishment on you and today offered a variation of either steps, zig zags and grass / mud banks to clamber up and down whilst also taking in the stunning views on a lovely weather day.

Over the course of the last few days we have enjoyed the South Devon coast line, probably becoming something of a favourite part for us although at times the signs on the path can be very frustrating or more to the point non-existent!  Whist covering the first 10 miles all went swimmingly until just a mile from Brixham the signs vanished and I was left with a choice of three ways to proceed.  Assuming one route was to the beach (make a mistake going downhill and you have an uphill climb to correct the mistake), I then assumed that the left hand path went inland so took the middle option (also flat ground), which went very well for 10 minutes until I entered Brixham by means of a very large housing estate?  I took me a while to sort my location from here and it was certainly not the entrance expected or planned but hey I met with Mrs R for pasty and drink by the Royal Hind.

We then decided that we would continue walking towards either Paignton or Babbacombe where we have the luxury of staying in The Downs Hotel for several nights.  This walk is classified as easy to moderate so it came as a little surprise to find the ups and downs starting almost immediately before the curse of the ‘no signs’ thingy got us again!  This time we had four options to choose and luckily got it right to rejoin the SWCP at Broadsands having we assumed made an earlier error #nosignsnoclueeither.

There’s a brilliant steam railway than runs between Paignton and Kingswear / Dartmouth if you are ever down this way, we of course watched it go by whilst walking.

At this point on getting near to Paignton we had covered some 16 miles and felt that would suffice for the day so took the option of a boat to cross the bay to Torquay and some well earned rest, dinner, beer, wine, beer, wine…..

Today is a very special day especially in the life of walkers with smelly, damp, dirty clothes as we are going to the launderette where a ‘service wash’ is planned (anyone remember those?) oh happy days!