SWCP - Stoke Fleming to Brixham

Sunday 24th July

I had bought a tin of rice pudding for breakfast and some tea bags so I would at least have something to start the day. The chalet tin opener was useless and my own mini opener was not much better. I eventually managed to hack and scythe an opening fortunately without opening an artery! I left them a note about their defective device, and posted the key through their letterbox

I was away by 7.00am, good job too.

Easy walking on road and forest track brought me to Dartmouth Castle at 8.30am where surprisingly the café was open for my first bacon butty of the trip, plus of course a pot of tea. It took about fifteen minutes to arrive and there were no other customers at that time. Before departing I bought an attractive looking home baked sausage roll for lunch which they put in a fancy patisserie box - £3.50, crikey, it was only a sausage roll.

Much later, after crossing the Dartmouth Ferry to Kingsmere I decided to lunch. The ferry by the way is a powerful little tug that ingeniously nestles the landing stage and car carrier along side and motors the whole thing across.

Back to me lunching on a panoramic viewpoint high above the sea. I took a bite of my sausage roll. It turned out to be sickenly, and violently currie flavoured and the thick surrounding pastry was like soggy cardboard, almost impossible to bite through. I stood up and in truec baseball style threw the dam thing as far as I could over the cliff, and I'm pretty sure it went into the sea.

I met another guy who I have seen a few times who is also backpacking the SWCP and he told me there was a café a bit further on at the National Trust gardens at Coleton Fishacre. After a big climb I saw a sign pointing to car parks and guessed this would lead to the café, but decided to continue. I made the huge corresponding descent and at the bottom I met an interesting couple, he in particular a follower of Buddhism and working at their retreat near Ulverston near my home and known to me. I mentioned that I had missed the café and he said, "oh, it's just up here through this gate" and I followed. That turned out to be a fifteen minute climb equivalent to the descent I had just made, and with interesting conversation all the way I was shattered. In rock-climbing parlance that is referred to as being sandbagged; however I passed on my blog card, and I was taken aback when he presented me with a 1965 Winston Churchill commemorative silver medal. I know he will be reading this and I'm sure from his sense of humour he will not mind my anecdotal rendition of our meeting which for me was interesting and worthwhile, and I may well make a visit to the Ulverston retreat when I get back home.

I went into the café and it had just started to rain. The place was heaving and no tables were available. I ended up wandering around with a tray containing a pot of tea and cake until I found a display table and seat at the entrance to the garden centre and sat their, miserable, in the rain and then giving in to don my waterproof.

The path was strenuous, almost as if purposely deigned to descend immediately after every steep ascent. My new maxim: whichever way you walk this SWCP it is uphill all the way.

I walked into Brixham and after asking about ,found a cheap hotel that doesn't do evening meals, but at £42 B and B the en-suite had a bath and I wallowed.

I have just eaten fairly well at the Quayside Hotel, but bordering on the pretentious. Scallops, mackerel fillets and a deserty thing all dolled up to justify high price.

I will be looking out for a good tin opener tomorrow.


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