SWCP: MINEHEAD TO PORLOCK
The plan was to start walking from Minehead and see how far we can make in a week, hoping to end in Barnstable which had good connections back to Penzance.
Day 1 - COMBES OF DOOM
I woke at 5am not feeling great. Apparently the night had been a symphony of flatulence according to H. I thought we could get going by 7am as there was no breakfast option at the B&B (so I guess it would be just called B then?). Unfortunately it took three visits to the loo before I felt safe enough to venture out of the door. Turns out that the Starbuck’s Mexican wrap I had in Taunton train station did a number of my digestive system. Strong avoid. I ‘camel’d up’ with almost 4 pints of liquids as I tend to cramp relatively easy after getting even slightly dehydrated on long walks and the weather was already sunny and warm.
We walked down the hill to the SWCP starting point which was very close to our accommodation. We laid our packs against the statue to take some photos.
A scruffy looking man carrying dirty laundry in a clear plastic bag wished us good morning. We took the obligatory selfies and we were off.
My hydration strategy was overly successful. By the time we had walked to the end of Minehead harbour, I was ready to spend a penny in the public toilet. The toilets were operating between 9am and 6pm and my watch displayed 8.57, but I was in luck. The toilet was open and available.
We entered the natural reserve where the path starts. Minehead in August, the peak holiday season was eerily quiet at 9am in the morning. Only a few people were out with their dogs on a morning walk. The dreaded climb out of Minehead was there to take out any optimism of a leisurely walk in the woods. The climb starts in the woods and continues pretty steep until it reaches a dirt road. My four months of strength train would be put to test while pulled myself upwards putting my brand spanking new Durston Iceline trekking poles to work. Despite the rude awakening to South West Coast Path’s undulating nature, I was glad for my training.
The ‘Rugged Path’ alternative was now the official route and we chose that. The dirt roads ends up in a farm and then another steep climb starts.
Unlike the most of the climbs on the path, this actually had some switchbacks. We reached the top of the climb and there was a bench by the gate calling my name. While sitting there, a sporty silver fox on his electric fully suspended mountain bike approached the gate. H opened the gate for him and he whizzed off.
The climb continued, but luckily this time much less steeply. I know that there’s a tipping point with the climbs where I hit my redline and have to take breaks. This third climb of the day wasn’t one of them I gladly discovered. The wooden path climbed slowly to the ridge line and we were rewarded with a cool breeze and open views of the Minehead sandbanks. We caught up to the whizzing eBike man, who had parked his bike against a tree and was approaching me with secateurs in his hand. Multiple scenarios ran through my head, but my preparation for what might happen was interrupted by him saying something about the bloody bracken which cut his arms when he’s riding. He was out a mission to revenge the pain suffered by chopping off fronds of the evil triffids.
We reached the top where a car park is also located.
The area was busy with dog walkers and the unfortunate side effect of dogs is the regular piles of dog poo on the path. I wish dog walkers at least used a stick or a rock, and flick the turds off the trail and into the bushes.
The trail was wide until it reached a gate and then it turned into a path more resembling the usual coast path. We reached the first combe, so down and up we went.
The second combe turned out to be rather majestic and worthy of a photograph. While climbing out of the bottom, we saw other people behind us descending. H decided to take a photo and someone of the second group waved at her. We reached the top and decided to have a breather and a drink. So far my hydration strategy was working well.
A family passed us while we were on our break. I was looking their pitifully small daypacks while feeling superior with my big backpack on my back and wiping down sweat. At least I could stop anywhere and camp out unlike these tourists. An elderly man with a red hot face and a bucket hat covering his eyes carrying a small canvas backpack went by and mumbled something about this is not hard at all. A little while later an elderly woman arrived and she turned out to be with the bucket hat man. She was also red in the face and trying to keep up with him while he marched on like a World War II tank.
We set off again and eventually caught up with the elderly couple. She was tying her bootlaces against a gate. When we passed her she was complaining about there is nowhere to sit and that back in Yorkshire they had walls everywhere where you can have a break. The bucket hat man was sitting further along the way after having discovered a nice cut off section of the trail which made a nice natural bench.
We continued the ridge walking. Coming towards was a group of people spearheaded by a young man with flowing brown hair wearing a white, loose linen shirt and slightly oversize chinos. Behind him was a young woman and shortly after an older woman followed them. Only thing that would give a hint that they were out walking was their hiking shoes. Otherwise they all looked like the had an all night bender in their regent manor and then the young man called out “pop on your hiking shoes, we’re off to a stroll. Keep the champagne on ice, James!”.
We reached the halfway point of the section and stopped for lunch. I was armed with Lidl’s Kabanoss dried sausage (great, high calorie food at 490cal/100g) and oat bars. H was more civilised and had multigrain rolls, with garlic soft cheese and ham. The elderly couple caught up to us and the woman with a red face said: “we’re almost there, aren’t we?”, to which H replied that we’re just halfway. She said she thought this section was only a couple of miles, but it is about 10 miles. I couldn’t tell if she was disheartened of the information we shared with her as they just took off again. I wondered if we were to find a collapsed pensioner later on the path but we never did see them again. Hopefully they made it alright.
We were over halfway and feeling good. There would be three or four more combes of doom to traverse and we’d reach the Hurlstone Point which would give us the views of Bossington Beach and Porlock. During this section, unbeknownst to me, my hydration strategy started to fail. I was tired but in good spirits. We reached the beautiful but very confusing Hurlstone Point junction. It consisted of a triangle of junctions all with signage, but so far away from others, the signs were illegible from a distance. The first junction had three signs stating a bridleway and “alternative coast path” so we proceeded to the next junction and were met with identical signs with “alternative coast path”. The actual coast path signs were nowhere to find. After walking a bit into what we thought was the right way, H decided to check OS maps and turned out we’re walking the wrong way. The right way was actually downhill from between the two alternative options but without a proper sign.
One our way to Minehead the day before a woman behind us in the bus was telling about this hill to her, what I assumed to be her grandchild. Apparently it was the steepest hill around in a few counties. The description wasn’t an exaggeration. This path was grassy and rocky, and we were pleased it was a nice dry day. Only thing worse would’ve been having to had go up it.
The hill turned out to be a knee burner, well more exactly quads burner and half way through the downhill calves joined in the pain game. I ended up doing the zig zag across the path to reduce the load on my legs. It was this time when the hydrogen started to build up in my leg muscles causing ever increasing stiffness. We had a rest at the bottom of the hill and finished off my water with mix of electrolytes. I should’ve hydrated more after our lunch break but foolishly thought I’ve mastered the hydration.
Porlock was on sight, but we were still 5k away, which seemed to last forever. My steps were getting shorter and in my mind my feet turned into tank treads rolling very little at a time. We even had a break on a bench 300m from the campsite. I don’t mind getting tired but if I get too dehydrated, I will suffer massive cramps. I had my worst night is after a one pretty brutal day on Te Paki trail where any after arriving to the campsite I’d get cramps to pretty much every leg muscle whenever I tried to move even little. I ended up sleeping in a foetal position trying not to move any muscle.
We reached the Sparkhayes campsite and checked in. I had been a bit worried that we wouldn’t have a pitch, since I had sent three emails over the past week about booking a pitch. When I hadn’t received any replies, I called the campsite the day before trying to get pitch, which I eventually did. The person on the phone said I’d probably send the email to a wrong address, but I knew I had sent them to a correct address as I copy pasted the email directly from their website. Ironically I did get a reply my booking email during the day confirming my email booking. I had to reply that I had booked by phone too.
The chap, who I believe to be the owner of the campsite said that we were luck as it was pretty quiet today as there were only a handful of bookings. “You’d probably get more bookings, if you’d reply to booking emails”, I thought in my head, especially since only way to book was by email. We were free to pick a pitch and we chose a site by the back wall next to a tree for some shade. We dropped our packs and I just laid there for 20 minutes in the sun. I asked H to get some water and when she returned I downed almost two litres at one go. I could my strength returning slowly, but I was weary not to do any sudden moves not to trigger a cramp.
I set up our Tarptent Triple Rainbow for its premiere night. Despite H being a slender 5’7 woman, she takes 2/3 of our super kingsize bed, while I sleep like the police chalk outline on the street of a person shot in the back. Luckily the Triple Rainbow bathtub is the same size as our bed so we knew it should work. I blew up my heavy, but extra wide Klymit Static V Luxe pad and H’s Exped Ultra 1R Mummy, leaving us a nice gap between us. Tent set up, packs unpacked, we headed to the shower/toilet/kitchen block which had a nice covered terrace with old random chairs and tables.
Behind the furniture was a basic, but functional kitchen, showers & toilets. If there weren’t any camper vans, this place could have easily been England’s equivalent of a Hikertown. I chucked more water down while sitting in a beaten up armchair while H was half lying on a sofa. We sat there for almost two hours like hiker versions of Wayne and Waynetta Slob hoping for a takeaway delivery.
Little after 5pm we ventured into Porlock in search of a meal and supplies for the next day. We found a pizza place which looked nice but only had 3 Google reviews, which is never a good sign, but we thought we’d risk it. Luckily it was a risk worth taking. We had lovely pizzas and H, who likes to leave positive reviews, left one for Eduardo’s as well on Google to boost the business. Next stop was Spar. Porlock has two shops for supplies, One Stop and Spar. One Stop is cheaper and Spar is more expensive but has more fresh food and even a small deli. After a resupply, we headed back to the campsite and re-enacted our Wayne & Waynetta Slob impression while enjoying the warm sunny night.
We were evaluating the following day. It would have 25% more miles and double the climbs without any bailout points or breaks in the middle. We both agreed that it would be too much to take on especially since the weather was getting worse for the next two days. We decided to take the bus to Lynton and with the tropical storm coming in, I booked us a B&B for two nights to wait out the storm. Our brave, roughing it coastal walk turned into a posh B&B hopping luxury trip. I was okay with this compromise as this was H’s holiday as well and we’re here to enjoy our walk, not suffer it. She kept saying this is a reccy for future coastal walks, which I reluctantly agreed. This would give me the baseline to compare how my current fitness level matches to the needs of the trail. Clearly there was more work to be done. I decided this was my training session rather than a serious effort. We retired to our tent and were asleep before 9pm.