Wednesday 11th April: Weather 10°C down to 6 °C misty foggy with drizzle at times
Minehead to Porlock: 14k walk: 4hrs 12.30pm to 4.30pm: Total Ascent/Descent 350 Metres
Accommodation: Lorna Doone Hotel
A misty cold drizzly day that became even colder as the day went on. It was 10°C when we left Taunton but dropped to 6°C half way through the walk from Minehead. An “interesting” walk across Exmoor, Lorna Doone country and typical of the English moors - misty very foggy and surrounded by low bracken, brambles. heather and gorse bushes with no views out to the ocean. The track was muddy - some parts were just wet and muddy, other parts were ankle deep in muddy water mixed with sheep/cow poo.
We’re wide awake at 3am. Time to re pack, blog and get things ready for the start of our walk. The Lowdens Guest house was comfortable, but the make-your-own tea was awful - skimmed milk in a sachet and el-cheapo tea bags. Not a good start to the day. We still need to buy a few more items at the shop - some full cream milk powder for our morning coffee/tea and Ian needs a new phone cable. Last night at Tescos, they only had 0.1% skimmed milk powder (tastes a step up from paint thinners) and didn’t have the correct cable. So off to Sainsbury’s to try our luck. It’s a 1k walk in cold misty rain and they still only had skimmed milk powder that was four times as expensive and no cable. Back via Tescos and bought a tin of skimmed milk powder - we’ll just have to use 4 teaspoons in our tea - and a cable that would do, but no the best one. I don’t understand the British obsession with skimmed milk.
We also need to repack a box of stuff(airplane clothes etc) to my brother John in Newquay. At 8am, we’re out the door. The drizzle has turned to mist as we walk the 1k to the Post Office and pay £16 to post a taped up Chinese Laundry bag to Newquay. The bus to Minehead leaves at 9.45am and we’re soon rattling along through narrow streets in small villages. The driver is fantastic negotiating our bus through laneways and hedges, the bus mirrors only centimeteres away from branches and cottage walls.
The bus pulls into the Beach side resort of Minehead. The temperature has dropped to 7°C and the tourists are rugged up wandering the shops. We walk along the wet beach front through puddles and I realise my socks are wet - not from the rain, but water seems to be seeping in from underneath. On inspection I’m aghast to find the undersole of my shoes and many cracks. Not a good discovery at the start of a 500k walk. I’ve had these shoes for three walking trips and they are great and I’d even road tested them from Wynnum to Cleveland several times this year, but not in the rain. It’s not the wet feet that bother me, it’s the fact that the shoes could fall apart at any minute. We had passed a sports store called Tresspass at the bus stop, and I decide it’s better to be safe than sorry, so I go back to buy a new pair of shoes for £22 (supposedly reduced from £80). Not the best hiking shoes but better than nothing. My back pack weight just exploded by 700 grams to take it over the 7kg mark so lucky I had trimmed the weight down so much. I decided to wear my old shoes until they died and carry the new ones as back up.
On the way back down to the misty waterfront and pebbly beach, we buy a hot Cornish pasty - no time to stop for a billy boiled coffee right now after a slow start. Soon we find the Minehead monument marking the official start to the South West Coast Path. The walk climbs up a few hundred metres to the cliff tops and it’s not long before we strike mud - and lots of it - a good decision to continue using my old shoes as the track was more muddy than any track in the French Alps. It’s a 2hr clifftop walk through the heath and gorse of Exmoor following muddy/pooey cow/sheep tracks. It’s windy, wet and the temperature has dropped again to 6°C.
Finally we start a steep descent to Bossington. I turn around to tell Ian that the path is very slippery but he’s already fallen over and is covered in mud but OK. Down to a small creek running into the ocean and there’s a small table and chairs - perfect for afternoon tea. The track follows a road through the National Trust village of Bossington, then up a winding lane to Porlock where we soo spy the Lorna Doone Hotel, our home for the night. We’re warmly greeted and given an old towel to de-mud ourselves. Up in our cosy but small room, it takes an hour to wash everything and string the wet clothes along the bar of the oil heater.
We’re soon downstairs by teh fire drinking a really nice pale ale, and order a 3-way lamb dinner with veggies on the side - 3 way meaning a lamb cutlet, a slice of roast lamb and a lamb meatball - for £18. Back to our warm room to rearrange our washing, book another BnB along the track and have an early night.