South West Coast Path Walk

Posted on April 8, 2009

We completed our Coast Path Walk on Monday evening, after a weekend of fine weather and much hilarity.

Day One
We started our journey in Exmouth heading off towards Sidmouth, and took up a fair pace to take us on this first journey. That was until Richard decided that it would be more fun to take the first part of our route to Budleigh Salterton along the beach rather than the cliff top. Stupidly and against Steve’s advice I agreed, and we trekked through the rock and shingle beach for what seemed like eternity, in fact Steve calculated that at the rate we were going we would reach Sidmouth at 10pm. Not Planned. Rule number one listen to Steve not Richard.

When we arrived at Budleigh Salterton via nudist beach inhabited by leathery men from the sex offenders list, we already had limbs aching and muscles pulled because of Richards bright idea, but at least it had a pub that served Otter Ale which helped cure everything except Richard’s groin. After this we marched at a much greater pace on the genuine path to Sidmouth and eventually arrived at 6pm for more beer at the Ship Inn. We then found our bed and breakfast on the edge of town.

When we got there we walked in to a time machine that took us back to my Grandma’s house in 1976. Thick wood chipped and anaglypta walls, floral nylon carpets, net curtains and bed wear from Brentford Nylons. The shower was the equivalent of a dripping tap, and I had a creepy porcelain doll by my bed that looked like something from a horror movie.

In the evening we met up with my old friends Howard and Sylvia from Beer Head and went on to a bar and watched a blues band, the excellent Rooster. I followed this with a fitful nights sleep being watched by the doll. followed by a breakfast that contained the world’s worst sausages. Steve was lucky enough to have some matted dog hair as an extra with his, this undoubtedly belonged to the landlady’s spiteful little shit of a creature with a caged up mouth.

Noticing that no one had signed the guest book since April 2008 at we left hurriedly in to day two.

Day Two
Day two took us from Sidmouth to Beer via Branscombe Bay. This was a beautiful walk over the hilltops with stunning views of the Devon Coastline. The sun shone brightly and it really did feel like July, and the though Richard’s groin was still giving him problems we marched triumphantly towards Branscombe where we were told that there was an excellent pub on the front to greet us. When we got there we were dismayed to find that despite having it’s very own brewery in Branscombe this place served either Worthington Creamflow or Carling, two of Britain’s worst alcoholic drinks. Instead we had Ice Cream and set off to Beer in search of……beer!

When we arrived at our B&B after a few pints of Otter in the Dolphin Hotel we were greeted by Dave, a friendly local, who took pride in having an impeccable well decorated place that was was in complete contrast to the lunatic asylum in Sidmouth. In the evening we took no notice of my friend Howard’s repeated warnings, and dined in the bland Indian Restaurant before a few pints on the front. I liked Beer it was nice, if the curry wasn’t.

Day Three
Day three was to be the toughest test of all, the journey from Beer to Seatown was about 15 miles of real up and down terrain peaking at about 620ft above sea level just before Seatown, we also faced with prospect of rain approaching from the west. We set off in hazy sunshine heading out towards Seaton (not to be mistaken with Seatown). What can I say about this place, except it truly is awful. You can almost smell death here, there are run down twilight homes everywhere and the seafront reminded me of a line in the Morrisey song “Every day is like Sunday”. It is as follows;
“This is a seaside town, they forgot to close down, come Armageddon“.
Morrisey must have been in a dark mood in Seaton when he wrote those lyrics, and so, as you can imagine, we walked onward towards Lyme Regis without stopping in case we died.

This was a disappointing walk that took us for miles through woodland under the cliff edge without any great views. I was also feeling pain in my knee now and the rain duly arrived as forecast. When we got to Lyme my mood darkened like the clouds as we discovered that the coast path had been diverted up several km of A Roads because of landslides. Richard and I quietly confessed we would rather lie about completing the last leg, and sit in a pub all afternoon and reading the paper, but Steve is a stoical sort and encouraged us by commenting (quite correctly) that Richard was on the verge of becoming the first man to reach the summit of Golden Cap with a pulled groin, and a traumatised anus (courtesy of the previous nights curry). So on we marched.

A few hours of hard uphill walking via Charmouth, we made it rejoicefully to the peak of Golden Cap, and descended wet and cold to Seatown and the fine Anchor pub where ate and drank ravenously to restore lost energy. We then took a taxi back to Lyme Regis to our spit and sawdust Pub B&B and drunk merrily, congratulating ourselves on a job done.

Yesterday was spent meandering around Lyme Regis in the Spring Sunshine before heading home and reflecting on a cracking couple days.

Exmouth Harbour