Walking - Day 7

Today's Route - Bigbury-on-Sea to Salcombe
Distance - 23.3km
Beers Earned - 7.2
Weather - sunny, hazy and very windy

Similar to yesterday, today's walk started with a river crossing. It was only a short stroll from Bigbury-on-Sea before our steps were halted by the River Avon, the same non-Shakespearean Avon that we encountered when walking across the moor last week. On the moor we crossed it via a clapper bridge but here at the mouth of the river we need a ferry.

Finding the ferry point was easy but attracting the attention of the ferryman, aka a local guy with a tiny boat, wasn't as simple as the last crossing. The instructions in the trail guide stated "wave and yell" ... so we waved and yelled at nobody in particular ... and someone on the other side eventually waved and yelled something back ... and then we looked blankly at each other and wondered what to do next.

Many minutes later we spotted someone in a little boat about 60m downstream, waving and possibly yelling. So we waved back, no yelling, and trudged in that direction. There were a couple of other walkers also heading towards the boat from the opposite direction ... safety in numbers, if this guy wasn't the ferryman it would be 4 against 1 to commandeer his vessel. Lucky for him, we didn't need to overpower him and force him to take us across the river ... 5 adults and a dog named Biggles safely crossed the Avon. Money changed hands.

The first part of the walk was a gently undulating cliff top walk against a 25-30km head wind. Luckily the wind was coming across the water so if it was going to blow us off our feet we'd land further inland rather than being blown off the cliff. Other than the wind, it was a straight-forward stroll to our lunch stop at Outer Hope.

Leaving Hope Cove the trail took us away from civilisation and the gradients became increasingly severe. The afternoon was a visual feast of high cliffs soaring over mostly inaccessible coves. Lots of ups, lots of downs, lots of zigs and an equal number of zags ... it was a very tiring section.

We arrived in Salcombe and found our B&B, which was at the top of yet another steep hill. Shower, dinner, sleep ... it's a rest day tomorrow.Read more