Friday, 21 November 2014

South West Coast Path

The South West Coast Path starts in Minehead, Somerset and snakes its way around the coastal inlets for some 630 miles before arriving at Poole in Dorset.  No doubt some attempt the entire route in one go, maybe in carpet slippers or riding a unicycle to spice up the challenge, but most normal folk attack the UK’s longest walking trail in bite-sized chunks. 

My friends live in Exeter which enables them to supplement week-long assaults on the more distant reaches on the path with day trips to closer stretches.   I had previously accompanied them on a sally to North Cornwall, starting at Tintagel.  I associated this area with fading childhood memories of indolent rock pools and lonely coves. Walking the coastline is a somewhat less languorous experience.  Climbs of cliffs so steep that steps are cut into the surface are followed immediately by knee-wrecking descents; and no sooner is one cliff conquered than another appears.  The whole enterprise resembled trying to cross a London suburb by climbing the front of each house, descending the back, crossing the garden and repeating the process on the next terrace.  Not only was it gruelling (some days we covered barely 6 miles) but the usual sense of achievement associated with summiting a hill is tempered by the immediate prospect of several more.

So it was with some trepidation that I accepted the invitation to accompany my friends on another South West Coast Path jaunt over Easter.  In the intervening period, they had covered some 400 miles, so we were scheduled to walk part of the southern side of the peninsular.

To secure the cheapest train fare, I booked soon after Christmas, peering at the map to discover the closest railway station to the house, selected to accommodate a party of seven, which appeared to be about as remote as is possible in mainland Britain.  The week after buying my ticket a series of winter storms of unprecedented ferocity commenced.   The west-facing roof of my flat, always susceptible to rain when accompanied by westerlies, developed several leaks.  More worryingly, a chunk of Brunel’s massive seawall supporting the railway track at Dawlish was washed away.  Attempts to repair it were hampered by further storms.  Pictures of the railway track dangling in thin air reminded me of my inadequate boyhood engineering skills when ambitious viaducts in my Hornby layouts tumbled to the floor.  These were not comforting thoughts and the chances of the Dawlish wall being repaired by Easter seemed remote.  In the event, Herculean efforts, spurred on by huge losses to the west country economy through having its only rail link with the rest of the UK severed, ensured that repairs were completed in less than the forecast time, just two days before my planned trip.  As we traversed the newly laid section, I was glad we were not the first train to make the passage: it was clear that, although passable, the work was far from finished.

Although the holiday was scheduled for a week, I had to miss the first day owing to a previous commitment to lead a Ramblers walk.  I managed to get an earlier train than I was booked, having slightly overestimated the time required for the Ramblers walk.  Consequently I needed to check the arrival time at Lostwithiel where I was being met.  The guard printed off the times which also showed I need to change at PAR.  I was used to the notion of these three letter abbreviations which originated with airports (Heathrow is LHR, for instance) and had now been adopted by the railways and assume that this was the code for Exeter, which is where I would have had to change according to my original itinerary.  However I thought it best to confirm my interpretation with the guard.  He gave me an old-fashioned look and explained to the stifled amusement of the other passengers that it is the name of a place: Par.  Obviously I was a Londoner abroad.  I consulted the map and discovered that Par is actually beyond Lostwithiel and that I would have to wait nearly an hour there in order to get a train in the opposite direction which would then take less than ten minutes to reach Lostwithiel.  This seemed pointless so I texted my friends to suggest they collect me from Par instead, which would have the added benefit of enabling us all to eat dinner at a more civilised time.  Several days later, as we walked though Par, a bleak post-industrial wasteland, the name became the occasion of much feeble punning which I will spare you. 

The house nestled in a lush green dell and had been architect designed with all the idiosyncrasies that implies, the most annoying one being that there were no opening windows.  Instead, every room had floor to ceiling French doors, including the bedrooms which were all on the ground floor, so that to get any fresh air these needed to be opened.  In one of the bedrooms (fortunately unoccupied as two of our party were unable to join at the last minute) even this facility was missing while in my room the French doors were jammed shut.  Despite these shortcomings, the place was generally well-appointed and, most importantly, well-situated as a central pivot for our walks.  Nevertheless, the physical challenge of the walks pales into insignificance compared to the logistical challenge of actually reaching them.  Linear walks either require ready access to public transport, which is generally paltry and unreliable outside cities, or a complicated, time-consuming and carbon-intensive car shuffling.  On some days, it seemed we spent almost as much time driving as walking and on more than one occasion, one of the cars was abandoned until the following day.

During an indulgent lunch on a rare "non-walking day" during which we covered almost as much ground as on a "walking day", the restaurant was invaded by a large party of hooray Henrys accompanied by noisy children. The kids we could stand, the braying adults we couldn't.  Our peaceful reverie was disturbed and several other diners, we noticed, left quickly.  Two of us were content to mutter about the bad behaviour of the moneyed classes and ignore the matter but our leader bravely decided that, for the greater good, these people needed to understand the disruption they had caused.  We stood well back to watch the fray.  In the event, she handled her admonishment so well (beginning by saying she understood that they were a large party with children so that some noise was inevitable and thus pre-empting an obvious retort) that they were completely contrite.  

Long distance paths provide an interesting insight into people’s personalities.  When I walked the Pennine Way, surely the dullest of all the UK long distance footpaths, I cheerfully abandoned a section across waterlogged fields for a path by a narrow gauge railway.  SWCP adherents are made of sterner stuff and one of our party insisted on covering every inch, on one occasion doubling back to bag a hundred meters which fell between the end of one day’s efforts and the start of the following day owing to the location of the car park.  I devised a set of criteria to determine whether a diversion was acceptable.  First, the alternative route had to be virtually the same length as the original.  Second, both routes should present a similar level of challenge.  Third, the two paths needed to be within sight of one another.  After considerable discussion, no agreement was reached but as most diversions were the product of judicious adjustment of the route by the authorities to avoid recent rock falls or storm erosion there was in any case no option but to follow them.

Next year’s foray has already been scheduled and as it will mark the end of the path for the doughty couple who are attempting the whole circuit, the group will be swelled by extra participants to cheer the triumphal arrival at Poole harbour.

© David Thompson 2014

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