One last walk before our week in the Lake District and we thought that a coastal walk would help get some ascent and descent into our legs. The various books on the coastal path seem to suggest that the hardest section of the whole path is that from Bude heading north around to Clovelly. Well this is part of it and I can see why they say that, there are lots of drops steeply down followed by steep climbs, perfect for some Lake District practice. The other main part of this walk is that it crosses from Cornwall to Devon and then back again, as you can see from the dotted black line on the map below. We had decided on a later start to firstly avoid the morning rain and allow for the cloud to clear. On arrival it had stopped raining and the cloud was up enough not to be misty, I’d decided to walk inland first to give us some views as we walked back, which was a big mistake as on arrival at the coastal path we could hardly see each other, so thick was the fog. The unfortunate part was the cloud lifted at the end and we sat on Henna Cliff looking back along the coast, a bit like the losers in the gameshow Bullseye, “look at what you could have won”! I’m already looking forward to the next section up towards Hartland Quay so we can see the views, however as we finished our thoughts had shifted to a week in Cumbria, tackling to high fells around Wasdale.

Start – Morwenstow

Route – Gooseham – Gooseham Mill – Darracott – Welcombe – South Hole – South West Coastal Path – Embury Beacon – Knap Head – The Hermitage – Welcombe Mouth – Marsland Mouth – Marsland Cliff – Cornakey Cliff – Henna Cliff – Morwenstow

Distance – 9 miles    Start time – 11.45am   Time taken – 6hrs 10mins Highest Point – Embury Beacon 157 metres

Weather – Cloudy, lowered as we reached the coastal path