Day: 058
Date: Thursday, 28 July 2022
Start: Torre
Finish: Simonsbath
Daily Kilometres: 35
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1630
Weather: Low overcast with periods of drizzle and rain in the morning and partly sunny in the afternoon.
Accommodation: Hotel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Breakfast sandwich/Breakfast bar
Lunch: Beef & pickle sandwich/Breakfast sandwich
Dinner: Pork sausages, spinach & mash/Burger & chips
Aches: Dave - a few niggles and sore feet. Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Near the end of the day, after an unexpected and brutally steep climb up from the River Exe, we gently descended towards our hotel across a vast newly mown lawn-like field in the peaceful late afternoon light.
Lowlight: It was disappointing not to get the views we had anticipated from the summit of Dunkery Beacon, at 519m the highest point in southern England, after the long climb to get there. We had hazy glimpses of what might have been, but missed out on the best of it.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
Another 6:00am start followed by a long steady climb up onto the Brendon Hills. It started out dry, but it wasn’t long before a light drizzle set in as we followed an old cart road, Blindwell Lane, up to a conifer forest near the crest of Black Hill. The views on the ascent were good, but marred by the drizzle, haze and low cloud. As we began our descent through the forest it began to rain in earnest, which meant some of the later overgrown paths were very wet and, soon, so were we. Just after a creek crossing we struck a really boggy section and, leading the way, Julie’s feet (and shoes) sank to her calf level (allowing Dave to manoeuvre and avoid the same fate).
More solid climbing across rough fields took us to the hamlet of Cutcombe, where we stopped and ate our breakfast on a bench in the old churchyard. From there, we began the long ascent to Dunkery Beacon (see above), first through some lovely forest and, later, across heath-covered moorland. Quite a lot of people were making the last part of the climb from the carpark at Dunkery Gate, perhaps a good alternative outing for those vacationing at beach towns along the coast.
We were disappointed not to get the views the guidebook recommended, but that’s the way it is when you are hiking. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t, but the high Exmoor hiking was still worth the effort. We had lunch on the crest of another moorland hill, and then made a poor navigational choice which saw us bashing through wiry, scratchy heath trying to follow an invisible path for a couple of kilometres.
In fact, we had quite a lot of difficult walking today, which probably accounts for Dave complaining of tired/sore feet. Apart from the heath, we had long sections through tussocky paddocks that wear you out and give your ankles and feet a beating. The weather cleared a little during the afternoon and the views improved.
The last leg of the day involved a steep descent to cross the River Exe and then an unwelcome and unexpected steep climb up the other side, followed by a gentle descent across fields and along a busy road to our hotel.
Just behind us, for the last kilometre, were some “Walk for George” charity walkers raising money for a children’s charity in honour of 5-y-o George who had recently succumbed to a brain tumour. They had a big travelling support crew, including George’s grandfather who walked with us for a while telling us all about it. It’s their last day tomorrow and they are staying in the same hotel as us.
