South West Coast Path Day 6.
Distance today: 20 miles.
Total distance: 1195.5 miles.
Accommodation: with friends of friends (in a caravan).
Walking down the hill to Clovelly I bumped into a young guy who was also doing the trail. I think he’d stayed at the campsite too. We arrived at the visitor centre about half an hour before it opened and the dilemma was to stay to get some food at the café or to march on an empty stomach. He stayed, I left. I had 2 further decisions to make. Did I go back and do the mile and a half of SWCP I’d missed by taking last night’s shortcut and did I take a short scenic detour to visit the quirky car-free Clovelly village. No to both. I guess I just wanted to get on with it.
Speaking of getting on with it, not far along the track I met someone who was doing the LEJOG. I think he was South African and I can’t remember the charity he was doing it for but I know he hoped to complete it in 40 days after committing to walking at least a marathon a day. That’s not messing about. Good luck to him.
There was a lot of cliff-top walking today with the occasional lighthouse and radar detection station thrown in. Not to mention Lundy which always seemed to be there in the distant background. Around most corners there was usually something different if not spectacular.
I reached Hartland Quay at around 3.30 and although the pub was open, I’d missed the time when they were serving food. Strangely, they did have flapjacks. A cup of tea and a flapjack it is then.
As if Steve and Helen had not been kind enough already, they’d put me in touch with friends of theirs who had offered to give me a bed for the night if the timing was right when I was passing. Bek and Steve lived near Welcombe, a mile inland from Welcombe Mouth Beach. Once I’d left the SWCP, I cut through some fields until I reached the road they were meant to be on. I was doing my best impression of a lost tourist when Bek pulled up in her car, having guessed who I was. After first apologizing that she had to go out for the evening she then pointed me in the right direction.
Berry Park was a large Victorian house which a group of people had bought to divide up and use for co-housing. That plus the 6 acres of land it came with now formed the basis of the Berry Park Project which was essentially an attempt to create a community which cared for each other, their surroundings, and the planet. It was both a noble and a pragmatic endeavor, allowing people to live in a beautiful place which, as individual families, they had no chance of affording. I’ll be honest, it scared me to think of living cheek by jowl like that. I liked the community-spirited idea in principle but I’d be the first to recognize that my kind of whinging personality probably would not be a good fit. I think I’d just end up being annoyed all the time. After a lovely home-cooked meal, Steve showed me around the grounds. It was still early days but there were grand plans afoot. A lot of emphasis was being placed on nurturing a low-impact self-sustaining lifestyle. It is easy to be wary of the potential happy-clappy nature of these kinds of enterprises but you sensed that, in their case, there was the right mix of creative and artisan skillsets that could keep the whole thing much more down to earth and practical. And fun.
In more mundane matters, I was given the choice of whether I wanted to pitch my tent or make use of the guest caravan. Who could refuse the luxury of a night in a caravan.
