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Day 2 of the Longest Walk

A longer walk today, will our legs survive?
A longer walk today, will our legs survive?

Todays walk started at 9:00AM, again the breakfast was perfect and a fuel top up for the day, looking forward to heading back to Sea View Friday night.
The day started with Anne having to put her raincoat on before we even left Porlock, not a good start, but it was only a shower and didn’t last long.
We headed to Porlock Weir, a small harbour with the Ship Inn’s twin sister (
The Bottom Ship), maybe we can try that pub Friday night!
From Porlock Weir a short climb up the hill, which certainly wasn’t as steep as the climb out of Minehead, meant we were heading towards Worthy on route we passed the £2.00 thatched Toll House
Toll road to Worthy, we also went trough some tunnels, an image on the SWCP* images page, heading to Culbone and Culbone Church, St Beuno’s which was mentioned in the Doomsday book, and also has a mention in the Guinness Book of records as the smaller church in England that still has regular services. We dropped in to look round and meet a lady and her dog, she quite happily told us that her dog and two other dogs regularly attend the church services there, and that they even join in with the singing!
From the Church we continued through Culbone Woods which once housed a leper colony, we didn’t hang around for long.
There had been several landslides and we took the original SWCP* route which took us high above the tree line with great views of the sea and the coast, although there were times with high hedgerows that we wondered if we’d ever see the sea again. This route took us past Silcombe and Broomstreet Farms, a little further on from Broomstreet we had a sharp turn back towards the sea and the lower path. It was at this point both of us had to put our raincoats on due to the heavens deciding to leak on us, this lead to some slippery conditions later on.
As we headed into Glenthorne Estate we decided to head up to County Gate, this was a 40-45 min diversion and a vert steep climb up, but the Tea and Cake served at the information centre here were well worth the excursion, I can recommend the Lemon Drizzle cake.

From here we headed back down toward Glenthorne Estate the wet ground took it’s toll and I decided to sit down on a particularly steep grassy section, no harm done except a dent in the ground of course. The Rhododendron hedges through the estate were extensive and during the flowering season this walk must be wonderful, however I have a feeling the best view of the hedges would actually be from the sea.

We carried on enjoying the views toward Foreland Point, and occasionally stopping to look back toward Porlock. We decided to again take the extra route around Foreland point and see the Lighthouse however the walk beyond the Lighthouse was on a steep slope and with scree under foot, the windy made the walk interesting but the views up and down the coast line where worth it, but this extra walk is not for the faint hearted, and should only be attempted on a good (weather) day.

We finished the walk into Lynmouth passing a Pirate Ship which apparently does float and isn’t just a piece of art, that’s according to the Lynton & Lynmouth Twitter account.

We arrived at our next B&B River Lyn View and was wondering how they could live unto Sea Views standards, well it didn’t take long, leave your boots there no problem, I came down a few minutes later to bag the boots, where have they gone I asked, oh we clean them for you! This is going to be nice. And great WiFi as well, that made me smile.

We took a quick trip into the town popped up to Lynton via the Lynton and Lynmouth Railway, a Victorian Water Powered Lift.

We ate at the Rising Sun by the Harbour and meet and chatted with some people from New Zealand, the meal a shared fish plater was great, what a great way to end a great day. Now will the legs be able to survive the climb up to Lynton tomorrow?

*SWCP = South West Coastal Path

A few stats.
6 hours 35 mins walking. Total 9 hours 55 mins
16 miles Distance, including longer route taken, I may adjust those figures when I can accurately measure the distance. Total 25 ½ Miles (corrected to 14 ½ Miles Total 24 Miles)
Total time out including stops photo opportunity, enjoying tea and cake, 8 ½ hours. Total 14 ½ Hours.
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