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.

Poetic Pathways, Satan and Surfers

May 25, 2016

Lynmouth to Combe Martin

23.50 km

34,463 steps

According to our guidebook and our “helpful” proprietor, this day’s stage is supposed to be the hardest on the Devon Coast.  Ken tossed and turned most of the night worried we would be walking forever.  I had contacted our next lodging to let them know we may be late and thus we steeled ourselves with what we were told would be a day of many, many ups and downs.

But first, I have to mentioned how the pub “Mum” made us a HUGE breakfast with so much food I was able to make sandwiches with the left over toast, sausages and eggs.  So the good news is we shouldn’t bonk on our way to Combe Martin.  And we save money – more pounds for cider!

Once again the weather was fantastic which is both a blessing and a curse when you have a lot of climbing.  Great views because of the sun.  But hot going as the heart rate goes up.  If I have to work out, I’d rather it be a cold day than a warm one.  So perhaps I should re think any future hikes in deserts or any place where the temperature gets above 18 Celsius during the day.

Leaving Lynmouth you have one of two ways to get up to Lynton – the very cool antique cable car or walk.  Sadly, the cable car does not open until 10 am so we walked.  It’s a nice switchback path with lots of stairs and great views.  Although I could have done without a climb early in the morning I was glad we did since this route is also decorated with poetry plaques from a contest held a few years ago.  In 2014, poetry boxes where left on trail viewpoints for people to stop, linger and pen some prose.  They would leave them in the box and eventually, out of 2000+ poems collected, a series of 24 were chosen.  They now dot the way up attached to solar lamp posts.  My favorite was by 5-year-old Casey:

I am sitting in the sun

I am sitting with my Mum

I am sitting on my bum

There are lots of sailboats

And seagulls

The end I want ice cream

After leaving Lynton we enter the Valley of the Rocks with formations such as “The Devil’s Cheesewring” and “Jack’s Castle.”  Legend has it the stunning formations were once a castle filled with beautiful women who were the wives’ of the Devil (also known as Jack).  One day the Devil returned home and found his wives indulging in a drunken orgy and in a fit of rage, he destroyed the castle and turned all the women into stone pillars.  (I know.  I know.  Devil.  Orgy.  Why was this even an issue… but someone else made up the legend not me.)  Prior to Roman and Christian invasion, this was a popular site for Druids to congregate for ritual.  Nowadays, it is used as a routing for extreme runners in the Lorna Doone ultra marathon held in September.

From Valley of the Rocks it's down into the stunning grounds of Lee Abbey and then back up again via Woody Bay to the old Roman “fortlet” on top of Highveer Point.  We didn’t see any fortlet but we did see signs saying Hunter’s Inn (SCONES!!)  at the bottom of the valley!  So SHUT UP LEGS let’s get down this valley pronto!

The descent into the Heddon Valley is the steepest in England and your knees will never forgive you for it but you can’t beat the spectacular scenery on the way down.  The river Heddon empties into the beach at the base of majestic cliffs.  The valley floor is forested and serene.  I did not get any scones because it was a 2km hike off the trail to Hunter’s Inn and Ken had us on a ridiculous military march schedule due to all the drama around this stage being so arduous. 

So now begins the climb up.  Way up.  From here we do a lot of switchbacks with stairs that are not ergonomic (my knees hate me) until we reach the top of Great Hangman – sea level to 1,043 ft.   Another decent and then climb up “Little Hangman” and now we are on the home stretch into Combe Martin.

The good news is we are making excellent time.  We got into town around 5:30 and to our lodgings at the Cranleigh House by 6. This was our first Air BnB stay (ever) and one of many we will have throughout the walk.  Stewart and Katherine were great.  Very New Age and Zen.  So much so that when we arrived they mentioned they were in the middle of a cleanse and are vegan.  Ken is taking this all in while drinking a Diet Coke that he is trying to discreetly tuck under his jacket sleeve.  Good thing when we bought it at the corner store we didn’t also go for a couple of “Man Size” sausage rolls to munch on when we arrived.

Dinner that night was across the street at the famous “Pack O' Cards” so named because it has 52 windows, 4 floors, 13 doors on every floor and 13 fireplaces.  Sitting behind us was Leonard Nimoy’s doppelganger.  Or maybe it was Mr. Spock himself.  He's came back before so who’s to say it can’t happen again?

May 26, 2016

Combe Martin to Woolacombe

26.78 Km

38,511 steps

After two back to back climb days we were prepared to let our guard down and relax our way through this next stage into Woolacombe.  One of the things to look forward to is the halfway point at Ilfracombe – a beautiful harbor town that has been a summer retreat for the well heeled since Victorian times.  Getting into Ilfracombe was uneventful – some road walking and general path and bridleways.  The main draw as a walker for the town is food and a chance to check out “Verity” – a 65 ft. statue based on Damien Hirst’s “flayed pregnant girl” history.  The pose is reminiscent of Degas’s “Little Dancer” so basically Hirst’s statue is a fourteen year old girl who is nine months pregnant, nude, has the skin on one leg peeled back to see the muscles, half of her scalp is gone so you see her skull and her pregnant belly is sliced open so you can see the fetus in the womb.  An art critic from the Guardian described it as “Hirst exploring his inner Hannibal Lector”.  It’s a controversial piece to say the least that is only on loan from the Hirst estate. You know, until he gets a bigger place and wants it back for his own garden of the grotesque and macabre.

After a lack luster lunch of deep fried roast chicken (it’s how the chippy “warms it up") it was time to push on to Woolacombe.  From here, we undulate up and down the rugged coastline to our destination for the night.  Occasionally we see seals bobbing below.  Sheep and lamb dot the landscape punctuated by the occasional cow.  We dip into the vale to the tiny hamlet of Lee where again, I could have had scones but Ken stops for no one or nothing so I had to fuel my uphill climb on an apple and a few chocolate Minstrels that Ken told me AFTER THE FACT he had dropped in sheep dung but applied the 5 second rule so I should be fine.

Approaching Woolacombe you walk along the Damaged Cliffs and Bull Point Lighthouse (a way more climatic lighthouse than the one into Lynmouth).   Then a final push around Baggy Point and into Woolacombe

Woolacombe is known as a surfer’s paradise but I saw nary a wave.  There was also no Chinese Take-Away, which really annoyed me because all I could think of for the last 10 km was how badly I wanted beef and broccoli on rice and about 40 spring rolls.  Instead, we had takeaway chicken gumbo (surprisingly good!) and a mini bottle of prosecco for my legs. 

The (water driven) cable car up from Lynmouth to Lynton, which being purists we did not use ;-)

A flowery day at the beach

Got milk?

The path into Ilfracombe

Ken summits the rock nipple of the Great Hangman

Lamb escorts optional

I see Ewe!

Leaving Lynmouth-on the "switchback path of poetry..."

Surf's up at Woolacombe!

It's a long way to Poole...

Coming around the cliffs into Ilfracombe

Verity!  (If you want to see her in the flesh(less) you'll have to Google her)

Coming into Woolacombe

Damaged Beach

Leaving our mark at Woolacombe Beach 

Tea time with a view

The great grind...

Reflecting...