MY TUESDAY morning began with waking bright and early and devouring an excellent full English breakfast. I then checked out of my hotel and went in search of a shop that could sell me water for my walk. It wasn’t a difficult search on account of the hotel receptionist having already told me where to look. As I ventured outside, I found myself once again stepping around the Blackbird Without Fear.
Category: Devon
LVI – Ilfracombe to Lynmouth
ON MONDAY morning, as most of my friends were commuting to work, I was arriving in Ilfracombe by bus, having already ridden the overnight coach from London to Exeter and then the first train of the morning to Barnstaple.
LV – Barnstaple to Ilfracombe
THE length of my walks in North Devon are, to some considerable extent, dictated by which towns still have any kind of useful public transport links. For the most part the railways were closed down in the 1960s and the buses are not exactly plentiful. I was struggling a little with finding an appropriate break point between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe, settling uncomfortably on Croyde, which gave me two walks of about thirteen miles each, but for the first of those, which is very easy going, that felt a bit too lacking in challenge.
LIV – Westward Ho! to Barnstaple
LAST Monday, I awoke bright and early, stretched out in an enormous bed in a rather large room and, for a moment, didn’t feel like getting up at all. But the lure of walking beckoned, so I arose and performed my ablutions before pausing to look out of the bedroom window at a view across the River Torridge.
LIII – Hartland Quay to Westward Ho!
I awoke early on the First of April, vaguely convinced that my phone alarm must be playing some sort of April Fool’s Day prank. Alas, it was not. Blearily, I crawled from my bed and prepared for a full day of walking.
LII – Bude to Hartland Quay
FOR ME, the last day of March began with an overnight coach from London to Plymouth and then, after breakfast, I jumped on the first bus back to Bude. Not entirely coincidentally, it was also the last day on which the 576 Bus from Plymouth to Bude would be running a full service; Cornwall Council would no longer subsidise the route as of the first of April and thereafter there would only be one bus per day, arriving in Bude in late evening.
XXXVIII – Plymouth to Looe
Dy’ Sul, my a wrug kerdhes dhiworth Aberplymm dhe Logh (ha dhiworth Dewnans dhe Gernow ynwedh).
Or, in English…
On Sunday, I walked from Plymouth to Looe (and also from Devon to Cornwall). Although technically I didn’t actually walk from Devon to Cornwall as that bit was handled by the Cremyll Ferry as it crossed the Hamoaze, the estuarine part of the River Tamar.
Continue reading “XXXVIII – Plymouth to Looe”XXXVII – Plymouth Loop
OCTOBER having brought unseasonal warm weather to southern England, I made doubly sure to have packed sunscreen before catching a train back down to Plymouth. My original plan for the day involved the Cawsand ferry but, so far as I could tell, it had finished for the season and so I settled for a leisurely jaunt within the confines of Plymouth’s city limits.
XXXVI – Bigbury-on-Sea to Plymouth
HAVING gone to bed without an alarm, I awoke at about four in the morning and vaguely snoozed until about six. I freely admit that I didn’t really want to get up and look out of the window because the dull grey half-light strongly suggested rain. By the time I had performed my ablutions and got dressed, it was a grimly unavoidable truth that Plymouth was firmly enveloped in low cloud and drizzle.
XXXV – Salcombe to Bigbury-on-Sea
THE last Saturday in September saw me return to Plymouth on an overnight coach, only to then jump on the first bus out of the town. I was joined on this public transport extravaganza by Simkin, who hadn’t been to Plymouth in a while and so used the gap between coach and bus to wander about, much as I had before, taking in all the changes.