Weather:
Fine and warm Distance: 15km (9.3
miles) Total Distance: 1491 miles
The 7.40 bus took me to Torcross. The walk along the front at Slapton was
pleasant in the early morning. I kept on
the path on the sea side of the road for most of the way until the ground got
sandy when I crossed to the other side where the nature reserve was, though I
must admit to not seeing much bird life.
The reeds beds at the reserve looked
very healthy indeed.
Slapton is famous for being where the
Allies practised for the Normandy Invasion, but part of the exercise went wrong
and up to 1000 American soldiers had been killed. Someone had dragged a tank out from the sea
in the last ten years and made it into a memorial to those troops who had died
there. The mock landings area had also meant
the five of the villages in the area had had to be evacuated.
At the far end of the sands I was lucky
enough to find a path that led up on to the top of the high cliffs but from
there on my rules meant that the closest right of way to the coast was in fact
along the main road for about three miles.
The official coast path goes inland at this stage along much quieter
roads. Anyway, I was in no hurry and
could take it very easy, getting out of the way of any oncoming traffic in
plenty of time. The road climbed and
fell a couple of times, at one stage giving good views over Blackpool Sands, a
popular sandy beach even at the time I walked past it.
Once past Stoke Fleming, a side road
cut down eastwards. It was marked closed
but I took a chance which paid off since it was some road works taking place on
a very quiet bridge, but gave me plenty of room to walk past. Along the road a bit a black BMW came out of
a large estate on the right. Looking at
the map it was these landowners that prevented the footpath from going much
closer to the coast which would have been much more pleasant.
From the National Trust car park, a
path led down to the cliff top path. I
stopped here to celebrate getting back off the road. It was around here that I remembered it was
my wife's birthday today! Further along
the cliff top I met up with a backpacker and his dog called Gizmo. He had spent the past couple of summers
walking sections of the path and had one more to go after this year to complete
the path. We walked into Dartmouth
together. He was a heating engineer from
Taunton and appeared very tanned obviously having been walking for quite a few
days up to then. One coincidence was
that he had eaten in the Fisherman's Arms in Averton Gifford a couple of days
perviously and enjoyed it very much, so much so that he had had to then take a
taxi to Thurlestone where his digs were.
The path came out at Dartmouth Castle,
where Gizmo had a drink of water after which we strode along the promenades
into Dartmouth. Gizmo was a collie alsatian cross and very lively when he saw
another dog. I left them both heading up
to the Tourist Information Office where ha went to find out about
accommodation in Brixham - having walked that route in a couple of days time, I
pitied them, because it was a difficult section on top of what they had already
walked.
I dashed into a newsagent to buy a card
for my wife and a pen to write it with and then into a florist before getting
a newspaper and sitting down, writing the card and jumping on the bus back to
Torcross where I met my wife nad son in the good tea shop I had found on the
previous day - this lunchtime it was empty.
After lunch we drove back to Dartmouth,
parked on the front and strode along the front.
My son wanted to go on a boat, so we went on the short ride down to
Dartmouth Castle. We did not bother to
look around the castle but had a cup of tea instead and a play around before
catching the boat back. My son was ever so
quiet on the boat and worried he would loose his hat in the wind.
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