Day: 118 17/7/94 Kingsbridge to East Portlemouth

Weather: Fine and sunny     Distance: 17km (10.6 miles)    Total Distance: 1470 miles

Time for another family holiday near the coast.  We travelled down to Kingsbridge on the Saturday.  It was a good journey considering it was a summer Saturday.  We stopped at Exeter to eat our packed lunch in the sun and then drove the final hour or so arriving at High House Farm not long after three o'clock.  We liked the look of our cottage, one of a series of converted farm buildings. It had a large kitchen/dining room/lounge with two double bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.  The other people gradually began to arrive including a couple from Warrington staying next door. He was a chatty individual who told me he thought he had the worlds largest collection of hammers, over two thousand!  And I thought I was odd. 

I went for a walk into Kingsbridge over the fields and then down through a housing estate. I went to the Tourist Information Office and bought a bus timetable and then up to the supermarket for fresh milk. I also bought a raffle ticket - from which I heard in November that I won a prize. I was so shocked when they phoned to tel me I had won I forgot to ask what it was.  I was expecting a new car to turn but instead a pyrex dish did - a major disappointment.  On the way back I walked along the main road instead of taking the short cut up through the fields.  Although this was a more unpleasant walk back to the cottage, it was actually part of my coastal walk, being the closest right of way to the coast, and meant that I did not have to walk that 2km the following day.

On the Sunday, I got up early and after breakfast started the weeks walking in earnest.  A walk down to the river and over the bridge bought me to the village of West Charlton. It was not long before I cut off the main road and down through fields down towards the estuary.  A a kind man stopped in a car and offered me a lift. I politly declined after expalining what I was doing. I reckon he must have lived in the isolated house on the banks of the estuary with his wife who I saw later in the coppice, walking her dog.  Once out of the wood, the path initially led along the river bank but soon cut up into the fields.  I got a little lost coming into Frogmore and came upon the main road a little early - I reckon a footpath may have been blocked off.

Once off the main road, most of the rest of the day's walking was on quiet roads, pleasant enough except towards the end where the roads got a little busy and narrow with cars going to the beaches.  The roads around Coombe were very quiet. At South Pool I walked over the stepping stones.  The section after that was hilly and dangerous since the roads were so narrow and busy with cars.  The dip down to the estuary at Goodshelter and then up again was very steep indeed, though we had been warned of that by a friend of ours. 

I caught the ferry back to Salcombe and set about finding the Tourist Information Office where I had planned to meet my wife and son.  As I was passing a tea shop however I heard her call out so went in and joined them for a pancake.  My wife was not overly impressed with the town of Salcombe; a little too twee for her liking, and said we had made the right choice in staying in Kingsbridge, a little more of a normal town.

In the afternoon, we drove down to South Sands along the narrow steep lanes of Salcombe, though I had to sample the local ice cream first from the dairy which was next to the car park at the top of the town where the car was parked.  We stayed at South Sands only for about 30 minutes, since it was so windy making the sand blow in our eyes.  This was enough time for my son to have a play in the sands and throw stones into the sea. 

We drove back through the back roads up to Malborough before returning to Kingsbridge.  

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