Day 9 - Braunton to Instow: 18.41 km

I genuinely do not know what is worse. The brutal climbs and descents that leave my knees filing end of life paperwork, or the unbearable heat and humidity that rolled over the coast today like one of those Old Testament plagues. Today was flat and gloriously free of soul crushing elevation which my knees celebrated enthusiastically. The rest of me, however, wanted to simply lie down in a hedge and await divine intervention because sweet merciful God it was hot. Today officially became the hottest May day ever recorded in the UK and it was absolutely savage. By noon it had reached 31 degrees and because this stage was almost entirely pavement walking, the heat rose off the road like punishment. Ancient Romans built roads to conquer continents and two thousand years later I would like to file a formal complaint. Pavement walking in extreme heat has all the romance of standing inside an air fryer while carrying a backpack and making increasingly hostile negotiations with your own nervous system. Truthfully I am not sure I can even manufacture an entertaining post because there was not much to entertain. Plenty of people out strolling and cycling. Lots of smiles, waves and cheerful hellos. Very little worthy of a photograph. I suppose I could say skip this stage entirely, but that feels wrong. The point of the SWCP is to do all of it, preferably in civilized stages like sensible British people with foresight and hotel bookings. Those of us from the go big or go home school of walking are being offered a very humbling lesson. Weather over twenty degrees on this route is not character building. It is a hostage negotiation. I kept having flashbacks to those endless exposed stretches on the Camino Portuguese leaving Lisbon where road and heat stretch on beyond reason and time itself starts behaving strangely. By the end I swear I had sweat out five pounds and all I wanted in the world was water, salt, and permission to sleep until next Thursday.

One saving grace of this stage is there is a lovely tea shop about three hours in. Right beside the river beneath actual shade and, praise be, SCONES. FINALLY. After days of longing and disappointment, I was reunited with my pastry soulmate. Under normal British conditions one has tea with a scone, but when the weather feels like Satan discovered central heating, one pivots to "fizz." Survival demands flexibility. They also served a shrimp sandwich so obscenely overfilled it looked less like lunch and more like a maritime event. Enough shrimp to feed a small battalion and enough Marie Rose sauce to relaunch the Royal Navy. Apparently the sauce became wildly popular in Britain during the 1960s when prawn cocktails ruled the culinary landscape. We spent a glorious hour and a half hiding in the shade, running our hands under ice cold tap water in the bathroom and behaving like heat stricken Victorian ladies recovering from a seaside fainting spell. There is a strange luxury in trail life where cold water on your wrists feels more decadent than champagne. Pilgrims have understood this for centuries. After enough miles, the smallest comforts become holy experiences. Then came the final ninety minute walk into Instow on a fully exposed path with not so much as a sympathetic cloud in sight. There is an option to divert onto a proper trail into town and for first timers I would absolutely recommend it. More nature.  Less bike path existentialism. But by then I had reached my thermal and emotional limits and wanted to arrive at the Wayfarer Inn for a cold shower and a nap. Any opportunity to shorten the suffering became irresistible. Judging by the six other hardened walkers making the same choice, we had all reached the same conclusion. Sometimes bravery is carrying on. Sometimes wisdom is taking the shortest route to air conditioning.

Tonight we are staying at the Wayfarer Inn, a pub currently deep in the beautiful chaos of renovation. At the moment it is mostly sleeping rooms and a promise that someone materializes tomorrow morning to make breakfast. Not exactly Serena and David levels of splendor, but that was always going to be an impossible standard. Going forward I suspect there will be fewer David Hockneys on the walls and significantly fewer Flemish Masters casually hanging in bedrooms. Saying goodbye this morning was unexpectedly hard. David made us promise we would return so we could all go birdwatching on Lundy Island and then attend literary festivals together. Which is perhaps the most gloriously British invitation imaginable. Last night over dinner on the patio we were chatting about South America when Serena casually said, “Let me find photos of the eco lodge with David.” I assumed she meant their David. Imagine my surprise when the David in question turned out to be David Attenborough. Just casually. No dramatic pause. No announcement. The same way someone else might mention they once met a cousin in Birmingham. There is something both refreshing and oddly humbling about that level of understatement. History's great explorers and naturalists often seem larger than life, but perhaps the truly interesting people know fame works best when worn lightly. I admitted I had always carried this North American idea that places like Eton and Oxford produced people with the emotional warmth of expensive marble countertops. Polished and intimidating. But what I have discovered here is a charming eccentricity to old British money. If you enjoy intelligent conversation, bird watching, dogs and strange stories, you seem welcomed into the fold. Case in point, local news recently told the story of mountain bikers near Balmoral who stumbled upon Charles wandering alone in the wilderness and ended up chatting with him for thirty minutes before being invited for tea at the gamekeeper's house. Because apparently this is a country where random encounters occasionally unfold like discarded chapters from a Tolkien novel. Walking has a way of stripping away rank and status. Mud on boots is the great equalizer. Out here hospitality flows freely and people welcome one another with the ease of old friends who simply happened to lose touch somewhere around the fourteenth century.

 Day 8 - Ilfracombe to Braunton: 24.83 km

Day 9 - Rest Day

I am sure a few of you noticed I disappeared yesterday and there are three reasons for this. First, this stage was one of the most boring walks I have done in the UK. Second, I was bone tired.  And third, the place we are staying for two nights has the sweetest hosts and two of the cutest dogs on Earth so honestly... priorities. History remembers many great human achievements. I personally would like it to remember me choosing dogs over productivity.

Now for the logistics. Our stay in Ilfracombe, forever remembered as the place where Ken dropped his shoe on a seagull, was at the Dilkhusa Grand Hotel. Grand in size, certainly. Another one of those places where finding your room feels less like hospitality and more like competing in a labyrinth designed by a Victorian duke with unresolved issues. There were warning signs everywhere about dangerously scalding bath water. This turned out to be the greatest work of fiction in the building because there was absolutely no hot water. None. We all endured lukewarm rinses while pretending not to mourn. Still the breakfast buffet bordered on spiritual healing, and the staff were lovely. Camino people would recognize the vibe instantly. It had faded Parador energy. 

Because we cut our previous stage short and never completed Ilfracombe to Woolacombe, we caught a bus and started from Woolacombe to Braunton. This was, in the language of philosophers and people making regrettable life choices, A BIG MISTAKE. We skipped one of the last glorious stretches of dramatic coastal walking and instead found ourselves on what can only be described as the filler episode of the South West Coast Path. There were magnificent surf beaches packed with long weekend wave chasers and endless dunes occupied by pre teen boys sand surfing while using language and metaphors only found on construction sites and locker rooms. These boys looked about twelve but sounded fully prepared to defend both their honor and their little sisters with startling confidence. The route passed through a UNESCO wildlife refuge which, if you are a birder, is basically the Catholic Equivalent of the Vatican with feathers. Rare birds, marshes and avian marvels everywhere. But by then we had no energy left for ornithological enlightenment. Instead we spent six hours collectively regretting not walking to Woolacombe and then busing to Braunton. Long distance walking teaches many lessons. One of them is that shortcuts occasionally charge interest.

Ok now about this place in Braunton.

We were met at the gate by Serena, David and their delightful dogs, Wookie the Wonder Whippet and Pancake the Too Cute for Words Poodle. Both looked like the canine equivalent of Chelsea girls who summer somewhere expensive and have opinions about linen. The house itself is stunningly modern and filled with what Ken and I initially assumed were very convincing reproductions of Old Masters alongside bursts of colorful contemporary work with unmistakable Basquiat energy. Reader, we were peasants in Narnia and did not yet know it. Last night unfolded in that rare way beautiful evenings sometimes do. Wine flowed, conversation wandered everywhere and nowhere, and the dogs made their rounds stealing socks and dispensing affection like tiny furry diplomats. At one point Serena was video chatting with her sister in France who was discussing renovations at her estate and wedding invitations involving Lords marrying Ladies at other Lords' estates in churches usually reserved for people with names that sound like law firms. The sort of world where everyone appears to have gone to Eton and inherited cheekbones and land. Ken and I sat there trying not to laugh because somehow we had been absorbed into this whole thing like distant cousins at Christmas. Everyone wanted to know about our walks, Canada and of course how we are all surviving under TACO. It was wonderfully surreal and unexpectedly warm. the British aristocracy built entire social systems around who belonged where. Yet there we sat, two exhausted walkers and a pair of sock stealing dogs, welcomed like family.

Now... back to the art.

It is ALL original. Every last bit. Our bedroom is filled with Dutch and Flemish Old Master etchings and oils. There are works by Francis Danby scattered through the house. The Basquiat inspired pieces? Let us just say the artwork hanging on these walls is probably worth one hundred times the value of our entire house. And yet they trust us completely. Doors unlocked. Kindness freely given. They are quite honestly among the nicest people we have met and I am going to be sad as hell leaving this little pocket of paradise and art world magic only to return to budget pubs and mystery carpets. And then there is David. Joined Christie's in 1969 as the youngest person in the Old Masters technical department. Ken assumed he was a barrister. I googled him and nearly levitated. The man casually mentioned none of this over Indian food and French wine. Apparently when asked what artwork he would most want to own, he chose the Bedford Hours in the British Library because of its exquisite painted pages and details. Absolute art nerd royalty behavior. Best part? According to his own biography, what he really wanted was to become an anesthetist but he missed out because, as he put it, "us thick boys had to do Bilge instead." Which honestly feels like the most British sentence ever assembled. Life is wild. One minute you think you've met a charming retired man with cute dogs and next thing you realize you've spent the evening drinking wine with a walking chapter of art history who KNOWS Mark Carney.  Understated elegance, honest charm, and generous hospitality may officially be my new life goals. But always with bold color and a healthy dose of weird.

 Day 7 - Combe Martin to Ilfracombe: 14.03 km

This has been one hell of a day and not because it physically broke me. This was one of those strange days where the vibes were simply... off. You know the kind. Nothing catastrophic happens but your spirit keeps snagging on invisible branches and no amount of walking lets you shake it loose. People say "walk it off" as though emotional static obeys the same rules as leg cramps. Sometimes your body moves forward and your brain lingers three hills behind, staring dramatically into the middle distance like it is auditioning for an indie film. Originally today was supposed to be a 24 kilometre march to Woolacombe followed by a bus or taxi ride back to Ilfracombe because there is nowhere sensible to stay on this section. Which translates into one of those trail days where optimism writes checks your body absolutely cannot cash. After yesterday, when my knees staged a labor strike so aggressive I was halfway to imagining a helicopter extraction off the cliffs, I looked at Ken and said there was absolutely no way in hell I was doing twenty four kilometres.I regret nothing.

Because of that decision I got to sleep in, enjoy a leisurely cooked breakfast and head out at 10:30 for around four hours of civilized walking. There is something deeply rebellious about listening to your body. Modern life keeps trying to convince us every moment should become content, productivity or achievement. Meanwhile every pilgrim, monk and wandering weirdo understands something we forgot. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is sit down and order another cup of tea. Combe Martin, by the way, recently stood in for California in the film The Roses. Personally I do not see it.  What Combe Martin does have is the Pack O Cards, a gloriously rowdy pub built in 1690 and designed around a deck of cards. Four floors, thirteen rooms, fifty two windows. There are lovely cafés and absurdly beautiful ocean views everywhere. It would have been nice to arrive before 6 p.m. and not in a semi feral state to enjoy them properly.

 

The walk itself was fairly uneventful. A little road, a little path, some climbing followed by a decent stroll into Ilfracombe where you are greeted by Damien Hirst’s Verity. A giant pregnant Lady Justice stands over the harbour holding a sword aloft in triumph while the other half of her body has been peeled back to reveal a fetus in anatomical detail.  I have absolutely no idea what Damien was going for here. Maybe justice. Maybe truth. Maybe unresolved mother issues. My first thought was, "This seems like an oddly specific thing to put here of all places." My second was, “Dude who exactly are you processing things about?" 

There was also supposed to be a nice tea shop about an hour before Ilfracombe but I am beginning to think God does not want me to have my Devon cream tea experience. Every tea shop so far has been closed. Every single one.  I came to Devon for tea and scones and instead I am being emotionally waterboarded by CLOSED signs.

Highlight of the day was Ken dropping his million dollar carbon fibre trekking poles over a seawall into a ravine and immediately taking off downhill like a man whose pension plan had become sentient and escaped. Full panic mode. Followed by Ken putting his shoes outside our room window to air out, only for them to tumble off the ledge onto the roof below, nearly taking out a nesting seagull. Somewhere that bird is telling a very traumatic story tonight. I will not be selecting Ken as my Everest climbing partner based on current evidence. Ilfracombe itself feels like the aftermath of a rough night out. I remember being here ten years ago and the place had a pulse. Now Brexit and an economy held together with tape and prayer seem written into the streets. Shuttered shops. Empty cafés. Hotels and BnBs with For Sale signs hanging around like abandoned Tinder profiles. There is a beer and cider festival happening in the park tonight though, which feels very British. Equal chance of a beautiful community gathering or absolute carnage. Somewhere between wholesome village fête and police paperwork. I may or may not investigate.

It felt heavy today. ” The Late Show ended and while I haven’t sat down to watch it in years, I remember the David Letterman era and those early Stephen Colbert years. I remember the wit, the irreverence, the art of looking power in the eye and saying, “Actually… no.” Knowing it ended because Colbert stood up to a bully filled me with a strange cocktail of emotions:  pride with a side of grief. Because I know, in my own much smaller way, the cost of speaking truth to power. I am nowhere near that influential. I don’t command audiences or shape headlines. But I know the double bind. I know that maddening gospel paradox where honesty gets praised in theory and punished in practice. Prophets really had the worst PR strategy imaginable. Even Jesus looked at systems of power and said, this isn’t it, and somehow people still chose empire. Humanity stays committed to the bit.

And I’ve felt sadness watching the women’s Camino community begin to mirror the worst parts of American politics. Somewhere along the way, difference stopped feeling welcomed and started feeling suspicious. I shared my journeys there not for likes or influence, but as a tiny signal fire to anyone who wasn’t white, straight, or conservative. Just a quiet way of saying: hey, if you feel like the odd one out, you’re not alone. There’s another one of us here. And yes, I’m angry that this can be seen as disruptive. But I also understand why. Difference unsettles power.  Because difference cracks open imagination. It whispers dangerous possibilities: what if another world exists? What if it’s kinder? What if liberation is bigger than we were told? Feminist readings of the New Testament understand this deeply. The women around Jesus were never threatening because they were loud. They were threatening because they testified to another way of being. I thought a lot today about Stephen Colbert and all the women and men who stood in truth before us. Those who paid much steeper prices than I ever have. And if this ache of alienation tells me anything, I suspect even the bravest among them went home some nights and wept. Not because they were weak. But because having a good heart in a hard world can feel like carrying water uphill.

Still… something is shifting.

We know the darkness of that shift. We see it every day. But darkness has always had one weakness: even the smallest light suddenly becomes impossible to ignore. 

I think the flicker is here.

And we are too.

A little bruised. A little tired. A little angry. But still rising.

Still burning with the glory of love.