Day: 062
Date: Monday, 01 August 2022
Start: Clovelly
Finish: Stratton
Daily Kilometres: 45
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1746
Weather: Mild to warm and mostly sunny.
Accommodation: Hotel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Cereal, toast & jam.
Lunch: Ham, cheese & chutney sandwiches
Dinner: Egg & cress sandwich/Chicken salad sandwich, lemon meringue pie
Aches: Dave - usual niggles and some nasty chafing. Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Too hard to pick
Lowlight: We intended to join a running club committee videocon at 10:00am and planned our departure time to be in a location, Hartland Point, that British Telecom said had good mobile coverage. Alas, it did not turn out that way and we frustratingly lost the connection after a few minutes and could not reconnect despite much effort..
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We rose early and helped ourselves to cereal and toast at our AirBnB, before quietly leaving at 6:45am, time enough to reach Hartland Point, 11 kilometres away, for a videoconference we had committed to at 10:00am. We based our timing on the guidebook which described the terrain as relatively level, but that was misleading as there were a few very tough and slow climbs and we only just made it in time. However, we also spent time taking in the absolutely spectacular early morning views along the rugged coast on a calm and clear morning. Unfortunately, the videocon turned into a bit of a debacle (see above) and we ended up spending an hour at Hartland Point at a picnic table. A small cafe nearby opened at 10:30am and we bought some lunch sandwiches to take with us before leaving.
The rest of the day was spent following the Coast Path westwards. It was like the labour of Sisyphus, with us completing one steep and sweaty climb to a headland with spectacular views to have the next steep descent and steep climb revealed and so on. The guidebook said this was the most arduous day of the whole trip, and it wasn’t wrong. Our total elevation gain (and loss) was about 2,000 metres, and most of that was very steep. That said, it was one of our best days, scenery-wise, with never-ending magnificent views. The trail was easy to follow and spent time in some lovely woodlands and fields as well as passing some picturesque little coves where people were swimming and playing. There were quite a lot of walkers out as well, some clearly finding the conditions very tough.
It was a long day, distance-wise, and also a slow day, because of the terrain, and we did not get to Bude (and Stratton) until around 8:00pm. We navigated our tired bodies to a supermarket on the way to our accommodation and bought some food and drink for a late dinner. We eventually checked into our hotel just before 9:00pm after a very long, but satisfying, day.
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