Posts about the South West Coast Path (SWCP)
Dad and I spent a week walking along the coast path from St Ives to Padstow. I’m not going to write a long story about this as it tends to get repetitive, so will confine myself to a few remarks and then leave it to the photos to tell the story…
Day 5
The Old Man had clearly been struggling the day before, a combination of a dearth of training and a surplus of blisters. So much so that the state of his feet ruled him out of a walk today, so I set off on my tod, taking the same bus journey out to Zennor for the start of today’s perambulation. Continue reading “The Far End of Cornwall – Part 3: Guano and Galleries”
Day 3
The bus dropped us back at Porthcurno, among the tourists arriving to visit the Minack Theatre, and we walked around it as much as we could short of actually paying to get in. We had other things to do. Continue reading “The Far End of Cornwall – Part 2: The Corner”
Day 0
Familiar stations flashed by as the train made its way through Devon – Tiverton Parkway, my old city of Exeter, then the highlight of the whole route with the coastal section through Dawlish and Teignmouth. Soon we were passing Dartmoor, and I craned my neck to get a glimpse of a favourite place. Continue reading “The Far End of Cornwall – Part 1: The Plodders of Penzance”
The Plan Every year from 2008, my Dad and I have walked a section of the South West Coast Path (SWCP), taking 4-5 days per section, and walking anywhere between 40 and 60 miles, depending on the terrain and logistics. … Continue reading South West Coast Path 2013
Ok, maybe the title is a bit dramatic. Â It wasn’t anything like a complete failure, unless you only measure it against the original plan to walk as far as Falmouth over 7 days rather than to Par over 4. Indeed, the irony was that in some ways this trip was the best of the 5 SWCP sections so far… Continue reading “SCWP 2012: Post Mortem”
I flew along today. The walking was, for the SWCP, easy; a certain amount of fitness had kicked in; and I had a reason to get it done.
Every year there’s always one day more than the others when I become aware of the place names. Maybe the toilet humour from yesterday put me in the mood. That said it was also about the simple joy of putting one foot in front of the other on a day of perfect weather and perfect scenery.
Continue reading “SWCP 2012: A day of silly names and perfect views”
I’m not deliberately setting out to offend anyone with this post, but if I do then I guess that’s a bonus. Every so often you find yourself doing a walk where a theme emerges and try as you might, it persists. Today was just such a day.
Today the Olympic torch arrived in Plymouth and I left town. Not that I am trying to avoid it, but I do have a long distance path to walk…
Continue reading “SWCP 2012 – Escaping the Torch”
Day 0
It’s all been a bit weird. I finished most of the planning for this trip way back in early March, making all the accommodation bookings and sorting the train tickets. And then stuck it all in a drawer for 2 months…
Planning
Although we’ve done a chunk of the pub for the last 3 years, this year’s ultimately turned out to be the hardest to arrange and felt really expensive too. And there are a number of reasons for this. Continue reading “South West Coast Path 2011 – Debrief”
During the trip we ate in the following places…
We stayed in the following places this year. This was probably the hardest year’s planning due the need to find accommodation in places that fitted with the distances we wanted to do, how we wanted to cross the rivers (especially the Erme) etc. We found ourselves going over our budget per night cost on a couple of occasions, and consequently made use of the Travelodge in Plymouth for 2 nights. With this we managed to achieve a cost of below £30 per person per night. Logistically it worked, but I wouldn’t have done it this way if I could have avoided it. Continue reading “SWCP 2011 – Accommodation”
River Yealm to Plymouth
After some hopeless navigation on the part of the taxi driver, we were eventually dropped in the lane to New Barton farm, then we walked down the track to Warren Point, where the SWCP resumes on the west side of the river Yealm.
Given the weather forecast for a breezy day and rain by lunchtime, the goal today was to try to get the walk done without getting wet.
The walk soon picked up the patterns of previous days – around the cliffs largely maintaining the same level except to drop down into the bays. And despite shedding one rucksack and lots of weight from the rest, we weren’t that much faster. Continue reading “South West Coast Path 2011 – Day 6”
