Day 10 - Instow to Westward Ho!:  20.98 km

This heat wave is going to be the death of me. I absolutely HATE hiking in heat and the last two days have turned me into a grumpy woodland cryptid staggering from shade patch to shade patch in search of mercy. By the time I arrive anywhere I am physically present but spiritually somewhere behind me on the trail having a minor breakdown. The one saving grace is these last two stages have been flatter than a conspiracy theory about the earth's geometry. My knees are thrilled. Civilization has also provided one great gift. Cold drinks. Plenty of them. But sweet Lord, stopping is dangerous. Sit in the shade with a little sea breeze and suddenly your body begins whispering seductive lies like, "What if we simply stayed here forever?"

Our stay at the Wayfarer Inn was, overall, a lovely one. The room had a glorious king size bed. We were gifted a fruit basket and homemade cookies. The woman at the bar handed us two enormous glasses packed with ice for our water and breakfast the next morning was so absurdly generous we had enough leftovers to build bacon and sausage sandwiches for later. I will have to inform David that he needs to elevate his game and begin serving full English breakfasts in bed to Serena, Pancake and yours truly whenever I next visit. Standards have now been established. My one complaint was the bloody recycling truck that arrived at 5:50 a.m. to unload what sounded like ten thousand beer bottles into the back. Historians tell us air raid sirens were designed for psychological effect and I can confirm this truck had mastered the art. My own startled shrieks only added to the overall wartime atmosphere. Then came the birds. Because to survive this heat we slept with every window open and the scaffolding outside had transformed into the perfect stage for a seagull and pigeon production of Les Misérables. The people sang. The birds sang. Nobody slept.

Today wasn’t a highlight reel for the ages. No dreamy café pit stops.  Instead, we shared a cold drink on the Bideford waterfront with the local homeless lads. Sometimes the richest moments arrive dressed like loose change and tired shoes. Bideford once shipped tobacco and pottery across oceans, now here we were trading stories and shade beneath a very undemocratic sun. Then on to Appledore where finding somewhere shady for lunch turned into a side quest survival challenge. We finally discovered two rowboats propped against the seawall and squeezed ourselves between them like exhausted goblins seeking sanctuary. Gourmet dining? Not quite. Pirate chic with a side of sandwiches? Absolutely. Then came the last two hours into Westward Ho! Thankfully the path softened into grass beside a golf course, ocean rolling beside us like nature showing off. A breeze drifted through and suddenly the day stopped feeling like a boss battle and more like grace.

Tonight we are in  Westward Ho! Would it even be here without Charles Kingsley? One bestselling novel and suddenly Victorian tourists started descending on the coast, absolutely thirst trapping themselves over windswept cliffs and literary feelings. Nineteenth century people really said, "this book emotionally wrecked me, let me travel several days by carriage and make it my entire personality." Without that tidal wave of obsessed visitors, would the Northam Burrows Hotel and Villa Company ever have happened? Would this village even exist in the shape we know it today? The delicious irony is Kingsley apparently hated the idea of development. He wanted the landscape left wild and untamed. Legend has it that when his friend and landlord Captain George Mill Frederick Molesworth announced the village would be named after the book, things got very spicy Voices raised. Tempers flaring. Victorian side eye at DEFCON 1. Then silence. Friendship over. Imagine ending a friendship because someone slapped your book title on a village. Men really will do anything except attend therapy. And perhaps that exclamation mark in Ho! was not excitement after all. Perhaps it was Charles yelling, "George, you absolute son of a Ho!" History rarely records the really good bits.

Then came my own romantic subplot with nature. Despite being covered head to toe like a budget medieval knight,, I somehow collected four ticks. Ken wandered around with bare arms and legs like nature's chosen one and got absolutely. Two attached to the backs of my hands and two found the tiny exposed strip between sock and tights. Tiny little vampires with Navy SEAL energy and a disturbingly enthusiastic work ethic. Ken then spent the best part of an hour performing tick surgery while I lay there feeling like a budget period drama heroine. We got them before they turned my blood into an all you can eat buffet, so no panic please. Just a gentle warning to UK walkers. They are out there. Tiny, horny for ankles, and moving through the grass with unhinged determination.

 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.