Made the most of our rest day in Padstow as the sun continued to shine brightly on the Birthday weekend. Our day started off with breakfast at Rick Stein’s Cafe …..

Then took a stroll along to the beach for a relaxing hour or so.  Weird to be surrounded by so many people – Padstow a hugely popular place.  There was a ‘grumpy’ moment on the beach though when someone’s dog thought it fair game to join in on Steve’s Cornish pasty lunch – despite several apologies from the owners, Steve just couldn’t bring himself to say ‘that’s OK – opted for the eye avoidance instead!!

We had found ourselves a perfect haven in ‘Coswarth House’ – a stroll up the hill, away from the jostling crowds.  Sampled a few hostelries – the Golden Lion, The Shipwrights, The Custom House – can recommend them all.  

Had a bit of an unplanned pre-Birthday celebration last night in Port Isaac 🎉🎉 – pub – followed by fabulous dinner at The School House – followed by more pub!! So a couple of little weary heads surfaced for fruit breakfast and headed out. Lot and lots of lovely Birthday messages received – thanks to all ❤️

Today’s path was Port Isaac via Polzeath to Rock and from there the ferry to Padstow. Stunning scenery as always along the way, ending the walk along stretches of golden sands and dunes.

So arrived in the very beautiful town of Padstow (of Rick Stein fame!) and weaved our way up the hill to find our Birthday treat weekend residence – Coswarth House – met by the charming Jack who chatted us through the hotel routines (includes breakfast at Rick Stein’s cafe) and led us to the sunny garden for a glass of bubbly.  It’s been a great day and there’s more to come ……

During our two day stay in the bijou ‘Surf Shack’ we had covered the coastal walk from Tintagel to Trebarwith Strand so Steve headed off solo this morning to complete the ‘severe’ part of the route to Port Isaac.  

I had a leisurely morning chatting to our hosts Jo and Grayburn, making them very envious about our travels (we never stop going on about it)!!!  Then headed off in a taxi, with the rucksacks, to Port Isaac and found our next ‘bed for the night.’  Some exceptionally winding, narrow and steep country lanes but boy am I relieved I’m not walking them.  

No phone service in Port Isaac but managed to stumble across Steve sitting down by the harbour – he had made it there in 2 and a half hours.  The views had been absolutely spectacular but the walk had lived up to the ‘severe’ reputation.  Many many ups and downs and plenty of ‘rock climbing’ like ascents where Steve said he couldn’t look down, just had to keep going.  Neither of us have a head for heights – can’t quite believe we ever contemplated this!!!

Port Isaac is a pretty little fishing village and is known for the filming of the Doc Martin TV series – beautiful winding, narrow streets, very quaint – interesting watching vehicles manouevering in and out though!  Had lunch on the quay and then more than walked it off on the steep hill climb out of the village.  Heading back in there tonight to have dinner at The Old School Restaurant …. followed by – you guessed it – another steep walk home!!

Steve’s birthday tomorrow – seems funny being away from home – miss you all. ❤️🎉

We finally managed to coincide a ‘day off’ with sunshine  + being near a safe swimming beach – Trebarwith Strand.  Still a hike and a half from our ‘Surf Shack’ but well worth it to enjoy some waves and a spot of sunbathing.  The sea was so warm – honest!

A comfortable stay in Marshgate last night – Roz and Roger were really friendly and accommodating B&B hosts.  Popped up to the village pub for ‘Steak Night’ dinner.  After another delicious breakfast this morning (all local produce including homemade bread and preserves) Steve headed out to start the walk from Crackington Haven … in torrential rain!!  Roz kindly drove me to Boscastle where I mooched around for a while in museum, shops, cafe etc.  And then took a little walk up the coastal path to meet Steve.  

We both headed out then along the coastal path to Tintagel … the guide had promised an easier walk from there on in.  Still a number of ups and downs and some pretty giddy steep drops to the side on what was a particularly blowy day.  Made it in fairly good time though and found ourselves amongst the throng of tourists in Tintagel.

Stocked up on goodies and set off to find our surf shack … and what a find.  

It’s so cool!! We’re so cool!!  Just wish I could say that they’re our surf boards – body boards wouldn’t quite cut it!!  We go up the ladder to our bed.  

Sunshine’s fully out now and we’ll shortly be sitting in the sea view garden tucking into a glass or two of the wine kindly left for us by our lovely host Jo.

Well you just would although the weather is a lot better for walking than being on the beach (bloody rain!) however that’s all gonna change now we’re in Cornwall, this is ‘yer’ actual sign on the SW Coastal Path….

One of the highlights of the travels has been the people we have been meeting either at the nightly stopovers or on the walking, and also some of the quite random objects, both large and small that you come across, for example in probably 75% of the places you cannot get a phone / satellite signal but then you see these little babies:-

Today saw another ten miles knocked off with the mostly up and down walk from Bude to Crackington Haven where we have now settled into a lovely B&B at Cornish Valley View with the last pressing item of the business for today being dragging our lazy a…s up to the village pub for dinner, this is the aforementioned Crack Haven and the rather lovely beach / harbour / village / pub / houses in fact everything is here:-

Hartland Quay – so sad to be leaving this stunning corner of Devon today – have spent 24 extremely peaceful and chilled hours here ❤️. Would recommend a visit.

Have just waved Steve off as he tackles this 15 miles of ‘severe’ coastline to Bude – and so starts the Cornwall phase.  I’m opting for a less life-endangering approach – taxi (no buses on Sundays!)

         The pathway to Bude …..

Been at this walking lark now for nine days and have seen off Somerset, whilst tomorrow will see us entering Cornwall and leaving Devon behind! A few stats from this week: We have covered over 60 miles (most of these miles were either up or down but not flat), we have also taken over 150,000 steps (Garmin figures not me counting!) in the last seven days!  Today’s journey was thankfully only 10 miles although of course the obligatory hills, thrills and mud were involved between Clovelly and Hartland Quay, which is also known as “shipwreck coast” and spotted this sign along the cliff path although it seems dozens of vessels have gone down over the years:-Also saw this memorial for a Wellington Bomber that never made it back to RAF Chivenor during WW11 having got caught in storms and crashed into the cliffs, its great that people are still making the effort to put wreaths in place!

Well today was the muddiest day so far and extremely challenging and long!  Look at my boots – looking a little different to the photo on our first post!! After 7 days of walking you could say they’re pretty lived in!!

It said it was to be a 11 mile walk but we reckoned it was more like 15 miles.  Whereas the last few days we’d managed some ‘holding hands’ walking ❤️ today we were back to Steve either being 20 paces ahead or protectively following me in my trail as I inched my way up and down the steep inclines.  Again a lot of woodland walking with odd glimpses of seascape.  Flora and fauna in abundance but lots of slippery overgrown paths armed with stingers and nettles of all varieties.  How Steve continues to wear shorts each day I don’t know – he’s clearly proud of his increasingly muscular, toned and tanned calves!!!

It took us 6 hours to reach Clovelly where our exceptionally kind airbnb host John came to meet us and drive us to his lovely home in Hartland Village, and we met his equally friendly wife Val.  Talk about ‘arrive as guests, leave as friends’ – this was certainly the case – we felt so at home – the four of us spent a fabulous evening together, having dinner at Hartland Quay Hotel and we enjoyed hearing about the adventures John and Val had experienced in their working lives – gave us food for thought!

At the beginning of the day, as we left Westward Ho! I spotted this sign – I know it’s a bit sacrilegious (sorry Car!) but it made me chuckle (and think of you Karen and Caroline) …. and I just knew there was a good chance it would be happening later … and so it did with my lovely new friend Val.  

Having stayed in Bideford last night, we needed to get back to Instow to resume the coastal walk to Westward Ho.  This involved getting the bus from Bideford to Instow and walking back through Bideford (3 miles) on the way to Westward Ho – we could so easily have cheated, after all who would know!?  But of course we did it by the book – honest Joes or ‘mugs!?’ Relatively flat start, more Tarka trail (see pic below) and then it got more scenically interesting as we left Bideford. 

An 11 mile walk today took us through a variety of terrain and scenic experiences – Woodland Hills, through pretty seaside towns and villages, sand dunes, exposed golf courses, sand and pebble beaches – something for everyone!  We even had an ice-cream stop and a lunch stop today!  

On the approach to Westward Ho we were so nearly blown off our feet – rain and gail force winds – it was kite surfer’s paradise but we were two drenched rats when we dribbled into the town.  Somehow the name of the town kept me going – such a cheery tally ho sort of word.  Didn’t feel the town lived up to its name though, not that we hung around very long.  Caught the bus back to Bideford where we’re staying for a second night.  Will be heading back to Westward Ho tomorrow where we’ll pick up the path to Clovelly – back on the ‘challenging’ routes – help!!