South West Coast Path
When the weather keeps you out of the mountains a coast path could keep your hill habit ticking over. But how does it measure up to the real thing?
The hardest day on the longest National Trail
Question: when prepping scones is it cream then jam, or jam then cream? I think it depends whether you follow the Cornish or Devonshire approach, but I can’t remember which is which. In the end I go half and half, pour a cup of tea from the pot and contemplate just how un-Trail-like this scenario is. I’d better explain…
Coastal paths are notoriously hard work. Walk the entire 1014km (630 miles) of the South West Coast Path (SWCP) as it winds around the bottom left corner of mainland Britain and you’ll accumulate a whopping 35,000m of ascent – nearly FOUR times the height of Everest. Last year ultra-runner Damian Hall completed it in under 11 days. It can be walked in a month. It’s more comfortable in two. Most walkers make multiple visits over months or years. We had a day. Research revealed that Hartland Quay in Devon to Bude in Cornwall is allegedly one of the toughest days on the path. Is it ‘mountain’ tough?
Our goal was to find out…
According to Trev of Trev’s Taxis, the ‘toughest day’ reputation is deserved. He tells tales of collecting bedraggled walkers who’ve underestimated the undertaking. He looks over at me in the passenger seat, and in his mirror at Tom. “You lads should be all right.” Trev deposits us by the seafront in Bude. The sun is shining, waves are lapping a golden shore, and it all feels about as far away from the mountains as it can. Except for one thing: we’re already climbing. “If we’re lucky, we might see a peregrine,” Tom says. He’s barely finished when he points excitedly at a fast-moving shape beyond the cliff’s edge as the world’s fastest bird soars past.
Rivers born in the mountains die in the sea. Where the fresh waters of the south-west
join the salt waters of the Atlantic they cut channels in the high cliffs. Our first major deviation from the gentle gradient of the clifftop stroll comes at Duckpool, a rocky cove with a stream to cross. The path drops 75 metres to sea-level, passes over a footbridge, and climbs some 85 metres back up the other side. It’s a steep and abrupt workout. There are no ducks to be seen in Duckpool, but you spot the odd ‘Dragon’s Tooth’. These small pyramids of concrete were part of World War Two defences to obstruct invasive beach landings, and several linger along this part of Cornwall. We know that weather and seasons carve landscapes – it’s what our mountains are made of, albeit at a speed that’s usually so slow you need to concentrate to spot it. The erosive effects of something as massive and relentless as the Atlantic Ocean are easier to observe. Chunks of cliff are breaking away, banks of earth slipping seaward. At Steeple Point the degradation is obvious, adding an additional frisson as the airy path teeters along the edge of evidently unstable ground. Above Wren Beach, GCHQ Bude has been bobbing in and out of
Over the previous nine hours we’d covered 26km with a total ascent of – wait for it – 1244 metres.
sight. This satellite ground station is every bit as subtle as the name suggests, with discs the size of tower blocks and high mesh fences topped by barbed wire.
Part of a mountain’s appeal is the excitement of an airy ridge or a sudden exposure to height. If High Sharpnose Point was located in the Lakeland fells, you’d call it an arête. It’s only 45 metres above sea-level, but when that sea is directly below you on either side of an abrupt ocean-carved ridge, it’s enough. As Tom cheerfully puts it: “One slip and you’re dead.” Certainly this rugged coastline has the potential to be as treacherous as it is beautiful. It was the latter quality, rather than the former, that led poet Robert Stephen Hawker to construct his small refuge in the cliff side. Built during the 19th century from driftwood, the view from Hawker’s Hut provided Robert with inspiration for his work. And when the clag rolled in and the view was stolen, smoking his opium pipe within its confines was an inspiring alternative. Alfred Tennyson visited in 1848 and, thanks to the National Trust, passers-by can still drop in to enjoy the view (but not the opium) today.
Morwenstow is the hopping-off point for walkers splitting the Bude/Hartland Quay section into two days. We’re not stopping, but that doesn’t mean we can’t embrace the tradition of a late morning tea break. Refuelled on scones with jam and cream, it’s back on the trail. A small rub on my heel has been niggling for a while. I’ve ignored it. After all, it’s only agentle coast walk. But somewhere on one of the stream-enforced ascents I feel the familiar ‘pop’ and sting as a small patch of skin parts company from my foot. A Compeed followed by a check of the other heel, and I re-join Tom at the top of the hill. He’s poking something with a stick. “This cowpat has the consistency of clotted cream.” I feel the scone gurgle in my stomach.
Marsland Water, the stream that forms the Cornish/Devonshire boundary here, meets the sea at Marsland Mouth. With a few steps Cornwall is left behind and we’re in Devon, facing the longest climb of the day. At 157m Embury Beacon is a way short of mountain dimensions. It has something else going for it, though: the top is the site of an Iron Age fort. The earthwork banks are clearly defined, but one appears to have been torn in half lengthways. I wander across and peer over the edge. Were it not weighted down by a cream tea, my stomach would leap clean out of my mouth. It’s a vertical drop down to the waves. The cliff is loose and crumbling. Staggering back, I wonder how much notice you’d get if the ground beneath your feet gave way. Not a lot, I’d guess. This slow demise of the cliffs means that sections of the path are diverted. In one instance, even the diversion isn’t far enough, and the fence edging the new route is left suspended
over thin air where the earth has been sucked from below it.
In the main, the latter half of our day is shaping up to be less of an assault on the senses than the first. The repeated drops to coves are gone, replaced by edge-offield walking and even a short stretch on tarmac. And this is disappointing. The SWCP is usually described in an anticlockwise, north to south direction – Hartland Quay to Bude would be the norm. Instead, we’d chosen to start in Bude and head north, the idea being that the rugged-cliffed beauty of Hartland Quay would make for a ‘bigger finish’. Were we wrong…?
With less than 2km to go, Speke’s Mill Mouth has pulled it back. This babbling stream would once have trickled nonchalantly from the moors to the sea with little fanfare. But the ocean has eaten away at the earth, forcing the cliffs inland. Now as the waters of Speke’s Mill arrive at the coast they cascade down a series of spectacular falls. Rainbow haze drifts from the spray as the water churns white below. Between the two largest falls, a motionless figure sits reading; their peacefulness juxtaposed by the violence of the falls. Less than a kilometre to go and we’re presented with the most mountain-like feature we’ve seen. It’s only 81m high, but St Catherine’s Tor is a perfectly conical mound. At least it would be if the sea hadn’t consumed half of it, making its gorse-covered slopes and crumbling summit firmly out of bounds. The finest views, though, have been waiting for us at the end.
At Hartland Quay, overhanging cliffs cosset a pebbled cove, the skewed lines of their geology indicative of their traumatic formative years. It’s majestic, and set at the heart of this coastal crown is the Hartland Quay Hotel, our bed for the night. But there’s beer to be drunk and a sunset to relish before then, plus a question to be answered: just how mountainous is the South West Coast Path?
Over the previous nine hours we’d covered 26km with a total ascent of… wait for it… 1244 metres. And it gave me blisters. So, is the SWCP – or this portion of it at least – a suitable replacement for mountains? Umm, no, not a replacement, anyway. Mountains are, and always will be, incomparable; the seaside won’t give you the same sense of remote elevation. Plus, the scenery on one side tends to remain fairly consistent. But if the hills are too far, the weather too bad, or your significant other reluctant to go on another mountain-based holiday, a rugged coast path is an alternative that, while lacking in peaks, will still provide plenty of challenge.
With 1244m of ascent, this walk would get you a massive head start on your Everest Anywhere challenge: see page 16 if you haven‘t signed up yet!