Day 4 - Minehead to Porlock: 16.67 km

And we’re off! It is official. The South West Coast Path has begun. In keeping with traditional British walking conditions, the weather spent the morning behaving like a charming first date. Bright skies. Sunshine. False promises. Then precisely ten minutes after we started, the heavens opened with the drama of a Shakespearean death scene and unloaded torrential rain directly into our souls. Fun times. Thank God it was a short day. The day began with perhaps the best smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on sourdough I have ever encountered. Silky eggs, rich salmon, buttery decadence. It was accompanied by what may be the single worst coffee I have ever consumed. Historians will tell you tea became Britain's national drink in the 1600s and after this coffee experience, I support their decision completely. Thankfully as age and menopause continue their strange remix of my operating system, my caffeine cravings are fading. This is not Camino territory where coffee flows like divine intervention. But in Britain's defense, the cider is glorious and the chips are transcendent. Back home I can take or leave chips. Here there appears to be no such thing as a bad chip. I plan to spend this walk carb loading with the determination of a Roman soldier preparing for battle. As for today's stage, there was a fair bit of up and down and up and down, although not yet the soul extraction levels waiting further ahead. Which is good because six hours of endless elevation gain in freezing rain might have had me googling alternative transportation methods. Horseback. Sedan chair. Emotional support donkey. We know at least six other walkers are out here because they were at breakfast in the Old Ship Aground with us. But after that they vanished into the mist like NPC characters in a side quest. Two appear to be here at the Castle Hotel tonight. We have not seen them yet. Only their bags waiting silently in the hall like tiny pieces of trail archaeology.

The terrain today was aggressively pastoral. Green beyond reason. The kind of green that makes you suspect God briefly got carried away with the saturation slider. Sheep everywhere, somehow remaining suspiciously pristine despite existing in perpetual rain and mud. There were Oreo cows, otherwise known as Belted Galloways, looking like they had been assembled by a distracted barista with access to livestock. A couple of wild horses also stood nearby delivering the universal look of equine judgment. Then... beavers. Actual beavers. Reintroduced only last year and already hard at work.  Tiny furry civil engineers with zero meetings and astonishing productivity. Meanwhile I was speed walking like a woman possessed trying to reach a tea house at kilometre eleven, only to discover it was closed. Which also meant I would be peeing in the woods.

And here is the thing about trail life. You can walk for hours and see absolutely no one. Not a soul. But the moment you squat behind a bush, out of nowhere appears a colorful crone with six Labradors or some weathered hermit accompanied by one elderly spaniel. “Hello! You alright?” they chirp before disappearing back into the landscape like side quest characters summoned by woodland magic and urinary panic. We arrived soaked at the Castle Inn which, surprise, looks exactly like a castle if a castle developed a drinking problem and excellent hospitality. It is run by two lesbians who placed us in the Tourette room which is enormous and decorated in colonial Asian style. Reader, I felt seen. Also there was another gigantic tub and I soaked in it for half an hour because my hips and knees had begun filing formal complaints after the rocky descent into Porlock. Afterwards we visited the tiny Dovery Manor Museum, a 15th century house packed with old bones, children's shoes and one truly unhinged invention called a man trap. These giant leg crushing devices were used by the gentry to catch poachers. History really had a remarkable talent for saying, "what if cruelty... but decorative?" They were finally banned in 1860 after centuries of distributing surprise amputations to anyone unlucky enough to wander by.

Tomorrow is a bigger day. Around 21 kilometres to Lynmouth and I am desperately hoping we make it in time for the Lynton Cliff Railway.It opened in 1890 and runs entirely on water power because Victorian people apparently looked at a cliff and said, "we shall conquer gravity with hydration." If we miss it and I have to climb the hill myself, tomorrow's post will contain significantly less spiritual growth and substantially more profanity.

Peace out my pretties! Love you all