Our Coastal Adventure is Over

Liz and I have finished our section of the South West Coast Path from Mevagissey, Cornwall, all the way to Poole in Dorset.  We've climbed hills, swum in the gentle ocean, tried all the real ales we could, wandered along cliff edges (yes, I did!), eaten some memorable (and not so memorable) food, met loads of interesting people and seen some magnificent scenery.  Since I last posted an update, we have done so much and been so many places that I thought I'd just show you a selection of some of my favourite moments.  So get ready ...

For 230 miles we have followed the sign of the coastal path, an acorn, and tried to decipher the sometimes enigmatic arrows and signposts that should indicate the direction you need to walk in.  However, they can be very misleading ... you'll see a sign saying Weymouth 6 miles and fifteen minutes later the next sign will say Weymouth 6 1/4 miles!  

Hmmmm! Surprisingly, we got pretty good at deciphering the enigmatic signposts and rarely got lost. 

Always choose the arrow with the acorn ... 

... and sometimes the path was pretty bloody obvious!

This, however, was the path near Polperro and that's me gingerly pushing my way through the brambles and nettles.  These gave us quite a bit of pain and the long grasses caused some extreme reactions from all the pollen.  On one stage, I basically went blind in one eye and Liz came out in big, red welts on her legs ... not very pleasant!

We have had amazing warm and sunny weather but one of my favourite days was when we walked from Bigbury-On-Sea to Salcombe.  The humidity, heat and cold sea meant that sea mists shrouded the coastline for most of the day.  We walked in the damp, muggy clouds until we turned the corner in Salcombe ... where there was blue skies, turquoise sea and a blazing sun.

The coastline (when there wasn't fog and mist) was a constant of our days.  We would joke that we couldn't be lost if the ocean was on our right hand side and this influenced our decision-making sometimes.  But what was fascinating was how the cliffs and rocks changed ... from black jagged spires to crumbling white limestone ledges, granite and boulders to stretches of fine yellow sand.  This was a coastline that always grabbed your attention.

Salcombe to Torcross

Meadows on the way to Dartmouth

Dartmouth to Brixham

The red cliffs near Sidmouth

The most westerly white cliffs, near Beer.  Beer was badly named because there wasn't very good beer at all!  Such a shame!

The crumbling grey Portland stone on the isthmus of Portland - a fascinating place.

The beautiful, steep cliffs near Lulworth Cove

Old Harry Rocks, on the way to Poole

You've got to love a good sea mist ... even if it does disguise the magnificent view that you had been promised.

As ever, I was always on the lookout for birds ... and there were plenty around.  Unfortunately, they were adept at hiding and would cheerfully trill and sing from the hedgerows and thickets.  However ...

Guillemots 

A yet to be identified kestrel

Stone pipit

LBJ ... little brown job

Pheasant

Meadow pipit

Stonechat

Yellowhammer

We had a day off at Abbotsbury, a delightful little village full of thatched cottages, ruined abbeys and, of all things, a swannery!  Before Henry the VIII destroyed their place, the monks of Abbotsbury used to farm swans for food.  Unfortunately, swan tastes rather horrid (oily, fishy, tough and disgusting) so they would kill the cygnets before they got too oily, fishy etc.  These are the only swans in England that don't belong to the king!  Mind you, swans only belong to the king if he asks them to ... he has a royal tagger who has the fascinating job of going around and tagging swans for King Charles.  Hmmm. Almost as good a job as the Guinness Quality Control man.  We went to watch the swans being fed and learned quite a lot about the breeding of these beautiful large birds.  There were 3 feral Australian black swans (escapees from a zoo or something) and they looked quite puny and insignificant when beside the white mute swans.

Coot chicks

They feed the chicks and parents cut eel grass and wheat

There were a lot of swans there

St Catherine's Chapel

But in case you thought we were wandering about, alone on the cliffs and far from the crowds ... think again.  Weekends were busy, the beaches were full of rather pink English tourists who were getting their fill of icecream, fish and chips and sun.  Unfortunately, they don't seem to have discovered sunscreen yet and do tend to drink gin at strange times of the day and in very bizarre places.  And they rather like to congregate in 'caravan parks' that resemble army barracks more than anything else.

The caravan parks went on and on.  You could buy one, stay for a fraction of the year and then the park would rent out your van for the rest of the year ... paying you a (small?) percent of their takings.

Evidently, you hire a little beach hut and then sit outside it with some friends and drink G&Ts.  

And then there were the Naturist Beaches ... that was fun walking through them!

But we have finished.  And there's so much more I can show you and tell you about.  But I guess you'll just have to wait until some later time.  Today I said goodbye to Liz, who is off to sample the delights of Bath before flying home.  And I'm getting on the ferry tomorrow to go to Jersey.  Onward!