A day of adventure. Elevation gain: 3137, distance 9.8. Weather - scattered showers and wind gusts up to 40 mph.
The day started with a surprisingly nice full English breakfast, which included fresh fruit salad. I was too annoyed with the landlady to get a picture. I had to listen to her go on about the wind being too strong to walk the SWCP along the cliffs. She should know and that I was crazy to try. This from the same woman who thought I was a bit out of my mind to do the long hike in the first place.
I got out of there as soon as I could and I won't be returning.
I took the Coast Path to see what the wind was like, having some backup options in case it was too much.
The beginning of the hike took me by The Torrs which is an unusual cliff top kiln where limestone was mixed with Welsh coal at high temperatures to produce burnt lime fertilizer and lime mortar for building. Most of these kilns were at quaysides for easy loading/unloading from the ships. I never did see the actual kiln, or the questrals or other birds I should have seen. I guess it was too windy for the birds....
The wind wasn't bad, but it was strong enough that I couldn't quite get to the observation point. I could continue along the hill top trail and am VERY glad I didn't listen to the lady at breakfast....
...because I would have missed beautiful scenery and a seal (which I didn't get a picture of). There was no one in the trail except a few runners. So my favorite hiking landscape: Wild, windy, bleak and no rain. Here are some photos:
Looking forward you can see Mortehoe point in the distance and looking back you can see Ilfracombe
And downhill, across Lee's Beach
I saw this guy along the way as I crested yet another hill.
Things got very windy at Mortehoe Point and I couldn't round the point. The wind was actually too strong to stand up, so I had to take a slight detour, but was able to follow the route afterwards. The wind was so strong sea foam was forced up into the air and fell like snow. Here are some photos of some people ahead of me and what I saw in the same place. Watch to the end to see the "snow".
The Vrbo for the night was another experience I'd rather forget. I didn't mind it was a mile out of town. I didn't mind it was another 200 feet uphill and storm Isha was coming in. I started to have a series of sense-of-humor failures when I couldn't find the place, ended up getting soaked, no food of any kind, and no heat. But let me back up a little.
Here is the entrance to the holiday home park (read trailer park) and the outside of the unit. Not sure what the elephants are doing there.... This is where I went initially, but the key safe didn't work and I thought I had the wrong place. Google had me going back downhill for 1/4 mile which turned out to be completely wrong. I came back up and went to the other part of the park area, but couldn't find number 21 and then the rain really started. Somehow I was able to find a photo of the property on VRBO and realized it was the first place I went to. I tried the key safe again and it finally worked and I was in. How funny that I forgot to take photos of the inside, but it was very forgettable....
I was ready for a warm bath, but there was no milk or bread - sometimes the owners leave some basics, so out into the storm again to the premier market - no choices of anything nice to eat....
When I got back the radiators were still like ice and no hot water. I was cold and wet and had to get some heat into me. The owner was able to get a plumber out, but I had to wait 90minutes. There was no space heater, so turned on the stove top and that didn't work- so back to messaging the owner. It turned out the wall switch was off. That quick fix got some heat in the room between the hob and the oven with door open.
Just as things were getting cozy, the smoke alarms went off. I didn't see any smoke, but must have been from the oven. Had to open the door until they went off and the place was cold again....
In the meantime used the process I used in Russia when the city turned off the hot water for a month each year for cleaning. Boiled water on the stove and did a wash around.
Plumber finally came and was able to fix it. Accused me in passing of touching some dials underneath the thing which I didn't do. Anyway, I hope any profit the owner was due to make was spent on the plumber and electric bill. BTW - this was by far the most expensive night's lodging I had on this trip.
Did I mention the fog horn like sound that went on for about a minute and seemed to be tied to the water system? This happened about 4 times....
Had the innards of half a Cornish pasty for dinner and some jasmine tea. The pastry was so bad I couldn't eat it. And some chocolate cookies the owner left as a welcome gift.
Am wrapped in a comforter watching TV and listening to the 70 mile an hour winds whip around the trailer....at least it doesn't rock.
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