Saturday 14th April: Weather 10°C to 16°C sunny and hazy
Combe Marton to Croyde: 21k walk: 7hrs 30mins from 10.15am to 5.00pm Ascent/Descent 1000 metres
Accommodation: Combas Farm BnB
Goodbye Mellstock House
Changing Shoes at Bus Stop
Dumping cracked Keens
Blue skies, high cliffs, no mud
Morning tea at Tors Point Ilfracombe
Low tide Lee Bay
Quaint cottages Lee Bay
Great Hangman in distance
SWCP at its best
Time to stop and stare
Checking the lobster pots
Lighthouse in distance
Lunch with a view
Rushing tide Bristol Channel
3km sandy Beach at Woolacombe
Afternoon tea in the passing place
Highlight of the day was seeing the South West Coast Path at its almost best - no clouds, no mist, no mud - just spectacular cliff walking.
Again we’re awake at 5am and time to use booking.com ahead for the next 5 days. Breakfast is toast, fruit, muesli and yoghurt plus a hot breakfast which we put aside for lunch/dinner. It’s a blue sky day and a big 30k walk ahead. But the first 8k is on and off the main road between Combe Martin and Ilfracombe. John, our host, tells us it's a busy A road, especially on a Saturday morning, and informs us there’s an 8.40am bus to Ilfracombe. That sounds like a good plan to trim the distance back to 22k and avoid the main road.
My hiking shoes are now cracked beyond rescue. Time to ditch them and drag out the new ones I’ve been carrying for four days. We’re out the door at 8.30am on a cold (10°C) but sunny morning and walk 100 metres down the road to the bus stop. 30 minutes later, the bus still hasn't arrived and a google check on Ian’s phone tells us there’s no bus at 8.40, just one at 9.40. Rather than sit in the cold and wait, we decide to start walking on the main road towards Ilfracombe to see how busy it really is. It’s busy. As busy as the Gateway with no shoulder and after 1k, we’re waiting at a bus stop outside Berrynarbor for the 9.40am bus to pass. I have time to decide that my new hiking shoes are ok and the old ones really need ditching rather than carrying them for miles just in case the new ones give me blisters. I strip them of inner soles and shoe laces and put them in a plastic bag ready for the next bin.
The bus arrived as google said it would and it’s only 10 minutes into Ilfracombe, a very large seaside town. We hop off in the High Street, buy a loaf of really fresh bread and 2 scones (which we later discover were at least a week old) from the locl bakery, then on to Lidyl to buy a small jar of cream to have with our coffee on the track instead of paint thinners, and a punnet of cherry tomatoes. There’s a rubbish bin outside Lidyl and in go the old shoes.
Following the SWCP signs to the coast path, we see "The Tunnels", hand carved a hundred years ago to allow people to get to the beach easily instead of walking up and over a 60 metre high hill that separates the town from the ocean. The signs lead us to a well made track up to Tor Hill with maginficent, though hazy views East to the Great Hangman Rock where we were yesterday and Exmoor, and to the West, the rugged coast line we are about to tackle. Time for a billy boiled coffee with real cream. I don’t understand the British mentality which demands supermarket shelves be stocked full of skimmed milk alongside a large selection of clotted creams!!
There are hundreds of sightseers out walking today. Ilfracombe is a popular beach resort and it’s Saturday so the cliff path is busy as we wind our way to the touristy village on Lee Bay with it’s quaint cottages. The rugged coast line is spectacular in both directions and today is the best day we’ve had so far. It’s a roller coast path past the light house and on to Morte Point. At 2pm, there’s a seat on the path. Time for lunch of fresh bread, cheese and tomatoes while watching a lobster boat check the line of pots just offshore. We still can’t see Wales for the haze, but it’s amazing to watch the rushing tide swirling past rocks as it moves up the Bristol Channel where the tides can rise and fall by 10 metres.
Ten minutes after lunch we’re at Morte Point and the long sandy Beach of Woolacombe looms into view. Another 2k and we’re in the village of Woolacombe, an upmarket tourist resort. There’s hundreds of people swimming or surfing in the 10°C water, some in wetsuits, some not, but the air temperature has climbed to 16°C making for a very pleasant afternoon. The beach is about 50 metres wide and it’s only 2 hours past low tide, so it’s safe to walk the 3km up to Croyde without getting caught in the tide rushing in. It only takes 30 minutes to get to the Croyde end of the beach and climb up the stairs to the road. Looking for an afternoon tea spot, the only place we could find in the sun out of the wind was a car passing place on the narrow laneway into the village of Croyde. We must have looked like a couple of hoboes sitting on the roadside kerb as cars negotiated passing other cars in our tea spot, narrowly missing our feet.
Google maps tells us that Combas Farm, our home for the night is just 11 minutes walk up this lane way, with a left then right turn and soon we’re at the farmhouse door and being shown to our cosy room. No, they don’t serve beer or wine, but there’s a pub just 6 minutes further on through a muddy lane to the village of Croyde. After dumping our gear, we’re sidestepping mud for the first time today on our way to the pub for 2 beers, watching the locals watch the steeple chase on sky tv.
We carry 2 bottles of beer back to have with our left over breakfast in the warm dining room back at the farm. I can see this is going to be a regular routine. A traditional English breakfast is a four course meal, when at home we’re happy with a bowl of muesli and yoghurt. So once the Lorna Doone Hotel offered us the option of a takeaway baguette of bacon sausage and egg, we thought this was a good option to continue.
It’s so quiet and lovely here. Any wonder the Combas Farm was rated 9.6 on booking.com.