Distance: 118 km
Ascent: 7,535 m
Max elevation: 316 m
Day 1 - Minehead to Porlock (20 km)
After walking along the sandy beach at Minehead the night before we started, we stayed in a B&B overnight and had a nice cooked breakfast before setting off early, stopping for photos at the sculpture that marks the beginning of the path.
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| At the monument in Minehead, about to set off on my first backpacking trip as an adult, with lots to learn and lots to see. |
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| Exploring medieval ruins that have nearly been swallowed up by the forest. |
A detour brought us to the ruins of a small medieval chapel that was now engulfed in a sea of nettles. I wandered around it, snapping a few photos, and working on strengthening my immunity to nettle stings. We had another steep climb through the trees to rejoin the main trail and I was already wondering what I'd let myself in for. My massive bag made every uphill step feel like a weighted squat and I was shattered by the top. Shortly after, there was another detour labelled "Rugged coastal path" that seemed to descend rapidly before climbing back up the hill we'd just done. I had been planning to take it, but the first climb made me vacillate. In retrospect I wish we had taken that path, simply because I have a better understanding now of my own endurance levels and I know we could have done it, but this was the first day of my first backpacking trip and I lacked the confidence that I could deal with the extra climb.
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| A doggo at the crossroads. We took the high road to avoid an extra decent to sea level and back up again. |
Instead, we took the inland path, looking out over the rolling, green hills of Exmoor, but it quickly clouded over. The view cleared slightly on top of a beacon hill with a trig point on top, but it remained misty for the rest of the inland route. We wandered around the earthworks of an iron age hill fort, then encountered a slightly lost backpacker who was sitting on the path looking slightly defeated. She was petite and was wearing a large men's backpack that fit her very badly, clearly struggling under the weight of it. She told us that she was intending to do as much of the trail as she could over 6 weeks as she tried to keep her shoulder straps from sliding off. We pointed out where the trail went, descending into the fog, then carried on.
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| We didn't know it yet, but this is typical of the South West Coast Path - steep sided valleys with a beach or a bay where we could camp and/or get some food before heading up another big climb. |
A long, steep descent had me singing the praises of my trekking poles for saving my knees, and finally we saw the sea again, walked out to a ruined coast guard hut, had our photo taken, and walked along the shingle beach for a bit. We found a small tea room in a thatched roof cottage and had a lunch of scones with jam and cream, despite not being in Devon yet. After we finished our very healthy lunch, we headed out across a boardwalk that kept us from slogging through a marsh, and then to our first campsite in Porlock. We had a view of the sea, and of the south coast of Wales, and we pitched our tent next to the overwhelmed backpacker. She had found an outdoor outfitter and was going to take a rest day to get fitted for a new bag - I must admit I was relieved to hear it! Our dinner was a mug each of soup from a packet and a sandwich purchased from the local shop, and we turned in for the night.
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| Our home for the night. |
Day 2 - Porlock to Lynton (30 km)
First thing in the morning I did some yoga to stretch out my calves, we made some tea using the kettle at the campsite rather than our stove and drank smoothies we'd bought at the convenience store for breakfast. We hit the trail, passing a very cool little post-war chapel made of corrugated tin sheeting, a partially submerged petrified forest and some strange arches and walls that wound through the woods and looked like something from The Prisoner or a Miyazaki film.
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| St. Nicholas Church, made of reclaimed tin sheeting, and with this gorgeous little sign. |
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| I'm seldom happier than when I'm walking in the woods. |
We were constantly on a roller coaster, up and down hills, and the forest soon opened up into more pines with less undergrowth. We passed a couple of veterans who were raising money for veterans with PTSD by walking the path. Once we got out of earshot I started singing "In the Pines" - the Nirvana version, of course - because it seemed fitting. The scenery changed again as we entered a forest of invasive rhododendrons that densely covered the steep-sided hill and blocked our view of the sea to our right, but once they dropped away we were left with a jaw-dropping view from our steep path that occasionally turned to scree. To be fair to the South West Coast Path, we were on another detour out to a lighthouse when it got truly steep, so the real path doesn't try quite so hard to murder you.
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| Crossing a scree field above a steep plummet to the sea with a heavy bag on your back? No big deal. |
By this point we had a "f*ck it" attitude and were taking any detours we came across. We did an extra climb up Butter Hill, the highest point in the area, with a great view over the fields and pastures below, as the woodland had dropped away. After coming down Butter Hill, we stopped at a pub to rest our legs and to have an early dinner, sitting outside on the picnic benches next to a narrow but busy country road. It had already been a big day and we had another 7 km to do before we got to our campsite. I wanted a fizzy drink but not soda, and my partner suggested lime and soda, which I'd never had before. It went down amazingly well. For those not in the know, most pubs in the UK have lime and soda as an option for designated drivers. It's just lime cordial with soda water, and it has become my official post- or during-hike drink. It's just sugary enough to be really nice after exertion without being quite as sickly as a normal flavoured soda and it's a nice break from plain water.
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| No matter how many more miles you have to do, it's always a good idea to soak your feet in cool water on a hot day! |
When we set off again, we quickly headed back into a wood of mostly oak and soaked our feet in a valley at Watersmeet, where two streams merged into one and were crossed by an old stone bridge. I was pretty tired by this point and was eager to get to our campsite. But we still had some climbing to do, and this was up a hill that seemed to be a massive colony of flying ants. The bugs were thick, the air was humid, and the views were scarce. Where we did catch glimpses of the dramatic hillside on which Lynton stood, it was too buggy to stop and enjoy them. I was practically racing down the hill on the other side as the sun was getting low on the horizon and I was out of water. We got down to our campsite after 8, pitched our tent in the deepening darkness, and showered before bed. We gave each other leg massages and slept the sleep of those who have walked 50 km in two days.
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| Not my favourite section of trail - buggy, hot, humid and at the end of a very long day. The view here looks better than I remember, thanks to my crabby mood! |
Day 3 - Lynton to Watermouth Valley (28 km)
We awoke to find our devices had no power and the campsite didn't have anywhere to charge them for free. We had a fry up at the cafe while we kept jumping up to feed the chargers with change and tried to get some juice via the solar panel my partner was carrying. It was a very late start by the time we set off. Despite the mileage the previous day I felt pretty good and by this point we were pretty quick at breaking camp. But we were put to shame by a fellow hiker who we had been camping near for the past two nights. He had a one-person tent that was so small and cramped looking that we called him "Sarcophagus Pete", and he was normally up and hiking before we'd finished our tea in the morning.
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| Lynton, built on a hillside so steep that they have a funicular railway. |
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| Goats! |
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| The Valley of the Rocks |
We had camped a little bit outside of Lynton and couldn't afford to stop and look around the town as we walked through, but it looked adorable. The hike out of town was one of my favourite stretches - first through a herd of goats nibbling grass on the cliff sides, then into the Valley of the Rocks, a pretty spectacular field of boulders and crags that would have looked at home in Middle Earth. The path started as a thin ribbon on the edge of the wild, open sea cliffs, then wound inland, past day hikers and dog walkers.
I saw, and nearly stepped on, two adders, but sadly didn't get any photos of them before they slithered off. As we traversed the steep, wooded hillsides of a National Trust area, I saw two red deer charging off into the trees and was so transfixed that I stepped off the trail and fell hard on my hands and knees, luckily, rather than falling down the hill. Getting to my feet with around 25 lbs on my back was pretty hard!
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| This section of the South West Coast Path is constantly varied between rocky coves, wooded valleys and hilltop views. |
We passed a huge abbey and its sprawling grounds, then into more woodland. All of this was in glorious, bright sun, and we were beginning to get great views of the headlands that both lay ahead of and behind us. It's a wonderful path for being able to mark your progress visually, and as we ticked off more headlands we had some significant drops and climbs, one right after the other, pausing for a foot bath in a stream, and for some tuna wraps by the side of the trail. The day started pretty warm and not for the first or the last time we regretted not having time to be able to find our way down to the turquoise water below for a proper swim.
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| Headland after headland on the North Devon coast. |
I saw, and nearly stepped on, two adders, but sadly didn't get any photos of them before they slithered off. As we traversed the steep, wooded hillsides of a National Trust area, I saw two red deer charging off into the trees and was so transfixed that I stepped off the trail and fell hard on my hands and knees, luckily, rather than falling down the hill. Getting to my feet with around 25 lbs on my back was pretty hard!
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| Grateful for outdoor pub seating, lime and soda, and a view. |
We hit a high point just as rain started to fall, and headed into Coombe Martin with our pack covers on. The path was narrow and wound between thick bushes, and a herd of sheep we'd encountered at the top of the hill ended up running away from us down the trail, basically all the way into Coombe Martin. We decided to stop at a pub right on the beach for a greasy dinner and a drink, once again opting to eat early and then do a few more kilometres to our campsite rather than having to carry our dinners with us. It's a definite benefit of hiking in the UK, as more often than not you can have a good hot meal from a pub or cafe every day if you want. We also chatted to some of the patrons about what we were doing and their impressed comments made us feel proud and happy of what we'd accomplished so far.
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| Enjoying sunset over the sea. |
As we were making our way to the campsite I'd booked, the sun was getting low and beautiful sunset colours were transforming the sea and sky, and we spotted below us a campsite overlooking the water. We turned aside and opted to stay there instead, pitching our tent as the sun started to go down. The sky faded from tropical oranges and pinks to a deep navy blue, and over the horizon behind us a single cloud began to mount up, a sign of things to come. That night a storm of wind and lightning woke me up and had me feeling a little bit nervous, especially when I could feel the wind lifting the floor of our tent, but our tent did fine.
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| A clear night, with one very ominous cloud on the horizon. |
Day 4 - Watermouth Valley to Woolacombe (24 km)
In the morning we woke up and made some baked beans on the stove, and as we sat there cooking, Sarcophagus Pete strolled past on what we had taken as merely the main access road for the campsite, but turned out to be the actual South West Coast Path. We had camped about 2 metres from it, rather than 2 km away at the campsite I had originally booked.
The rain overnight had soaked the socks and things we'd hung out to dry, so we stayed long enough to dry them a bit more, and set off into what was an overcast and slightly blustery morning. The first part of the day was pretty unassuming, winding alongside busy roads, ducking between back fences of terraced houses, and staying relatively flat through thick bracken overlooked by expensive houses. We ran into Sarcophagus Pete waiting for a bus on the outskirts of Ilfracombe - he'd left his trekking poles in a cafe and walked across town before realising. The bus skirted a huge hill that overlooked Ilfracombe harbour, but the trail went zig-zagging up it instead. It was heavily wooded, so there were only a few viewpoints, but we got a nice view of the strikingly incongruous Damien Hirst statue, Verity, striding above the harbour.
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| Verity, Ilfracombe |
Back down into town on the harbour I posed for a photo with Verity and we wandered around a bit looking for somewhere to have lunch, hiker hunger having hit us fully by this point. After some searching, my partner identified a little tea room where we sat outside next to an artificial waterfall and ate our body weight in food. I had an omelette and a mandarin orange sponge cake the size of an airplane wheel chock (that I still day dream about), and my partner had an afternoon tea for two on a tiered porcelain cake tower. It was definitely too fancy for us. We bought and wrote postcards and while I was waiting for my partner to find stamps to send them, I witnessed a dog lash out and bit a man's hand as he walked passed. They were right next to me and I'd been looking right at them - the man hadn't even looked at the dog. I was able to help with my meagre first aid supplies as the dog's owner kept insisting, "She's really gentle! My daughter is disabled!" The man's hand was bleeding badly from a deep gouge wound and his friend was urging him to go to hospital. I felt bad for everyone involved.
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| "This is my life now." Nothing but ups and downs. |
After all of that, we left Ilfracombe after 2 with most of the day's hike still to do. Despite overcast skies it was still hot and humid, and I ran low on water again. First, there was a big climb up a winding hill, with benches every few metres, it seemed. We had already invented the "South West Coast Path Bench Density Scale" as a measure of how close to a town we were, and this section was off the chart. Quickly, though, we were on remote moorland, with the clouds spitting down on us and a deafening wind in our ears. We leapfrogged with a fit-looking couple clad in bright GoreTex (I named them "The Fogles", after adventurous TV presenter Ben Fogle), but otherwise we were alone on steep and desolate moors. I sang to keep my spirits up, and my partner noticed that I tended to do this more when I got dehydrated. We also spotted a VERY lost looking car driving off-road to the top of one of the hills out in the middle of nowhere and turning around, presumably another victim of blind faith in Sat Nav.
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| After enough time on trail, things get a little bit weird. |
The first civilisation we reached was a group of houses on a steep hill. One guy (who looked like Faramir from Lord of the Rings) was out working in his garden and we stopped and chatted for a bit, then descended into Lee Mouth, an adorable little village on a cove, where people were sitting out enjoying drinks looking over the sea despite the grey weather. We dropped down to a number of beautiful coves, only to climb back up again until up and down stopped feeling significant. The guide book described this trail as a roller coaster, but I'm pretty sure even roller coasters have more flat sections. This was the first time I had to ask my partner if we could sit down because I wasn't sure if my legs would keep going. We found a bench, a sure sign that we weren't too far from civilisation, and took a little rest as the wind and rain picked up. Then we rounded the wild and alien-looking Morte Point and headed along the wall of a wide bay with a long, sandy beach: Woolacombe.
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| Lee Mouth, Devon. Very cute. |
When we reached the paved streets of the town, we were doing a zombie-like walk that to most hikers is known as the "hiker hobble", but that will forever be known to us as "the Woolacombe Shuffle". We grunted at each other to confirm that we would go to the first restaurant we encountered, a burger joint with an outdoor deck so that we wouldn't offend other patrons with our smell and our big bags, and ate a big dinner.
Unbeknown to me, the "campsite" I'd booked was a hellscape made real, AKA a holiday park. I did not know that such a thing existed so I didn't know to avoid it, but we made the best of being one of two tents in a sea of RVs and static caravans. At least the showers were clean and I washed and blow-dried some of my clothes, did some yoga and had a decent night's sleep.
Day 5 - Woolacombe to Croyde (16 km)
In the morning we finally posted our postcards, and had a nice (gigantic) breakfast at a surfer-friendly cafe in town because we knew we had a shorter day. We walked along the long, sandy beach, where hang gliders and surfers abounded. We only had one headland to go over, so we took our time, and watched rock climbers scaling the sheer cliffs below Baggy Point in the wild wind.
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| The last headland, Baggy Point. |
I had cut the itinerary short because the walk into Barnstaple sounded pretty boring and I thought keeping the mileage down for our first backpacking trip was a good idea. That way we got a day in Croyde, a surfer town, and we'd be able to swim and surf to recover from our walk. That was the theory, anyway. In practice, we had good weather walking into town, and sat on the beach in the afternoon, but the full day we had in Croyde was tipping it down and the weather turned cold. Instead of surfing, we did a short 5 1/2 km walk around the hills above Croyde and got thoroughly soaked. But we enjoyed our stay. Surf towns tend to have very good shops and restaurants, so we took plenty of advantage of those, as well as lounging around our room at our B&B drinking tea and looking out at the weather.
Lessons Learned
It's funny, I wrote some lessons learned in my hiking journal at the time, and looking back at them I've changed my mind on most of them. But we did learn a lot from this trip.
First and foremost, it was just gaining the confidence that we could backpack, and that it was enjoyable for us. The quality time you spend with someone on a hike like this is irreplaceable. We walked in silence a lot, but we also talked a lot, made jokes, shared experiences and supported each other.
Second, I learned the value of editing gear down as much as possible. I had written that a camera wouldn't have been worth the weight because phone cameras are good enough, but I'm rethinking that these days. Also, one water bottle is not enough for a day of backpacking.
Given how much we regretted not being able to stop and swim, and how many times we changed campsites on the fly, I felt after this hike that it would be nicer to have a less rigid schedule, and we're working toward that. Backpacking can be handled like a military operation or like a vacation from obligations, where your only responsibility is to keep yourself nourished and hydrated enough to keep moving forward, and I prefer the latter.
I really fell in love with the South West Coast Path over this week, and the next section that we did two years later sealed the deal. It's a remarkable path for the UK, taking you through so much diversity of landscape and terrain without being a boggy nightmare like parts of the Pennine Way and Hadrian's Wall Path are. While there are services that carry your bag from place to place, it's so rewarding to do it yourself on this path. It's hard, yes, but few things can beat the freedom of having everything you need on your back and being able to make your own schedule. I'm looking forward to hiking the rest of the path over the next several years and to some day making it to the other end at Poole. From there, I'll be able to look back at this first trip and know that it was the beginning of a deep love of backpacking that has shaped my adult life for the better.
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