#swcp

• SALCOMBE •

Nothing beats golden hour walking from East Prawle, Devon to Salcombe and back along the south west coast path.

Stopped off for an amazing Ploughman's lunch in The Gara Rock Hotel with one of the best ciders I've ever had.

Need to squeeze a few more of these in before summer ends.

It could be my imagination, but there’s a softness that seems to wrap you in a South West embrace somewhere around about Exeter. Persistent rain streaks the Great Western train windows and a gentle mist descends first on the muddy flats of the River Ex, the terraced houses flanking the railway around Plymouth, the fishing boats far below Albert Bridge after Saltash, and then the rolling green hills as we journey through Liskeard - Bodmin Parkway - Par - St Austell - Truro - St Erth and finally Penzance.

I am hoping the rain is for Travel Day only. The start of another long solo walk and wild camping expedition is bringing up a familiar and not entirely comfortable anxiety, that I know from experience is much lessened if things stay more or less dry. Thankfully the weather app is showing reassuring semi-sunny, cloudy, windy icons for the next seven days. 

Es geht los. Nach einer kurzen Nacht und einem hektischen Aufbruch sitzen wir jetzt im Zug, der uns über Paris und London nach Padstow bringt. Und wir sind soooo aufgeregt. Wir tragen alles, was wir in den nächsten knapp drei Wochen brauchen auf unseren Rücken: Zelt, Schlafsack, Isomatte, Klamotten … alles ist auf das Notwendigste reduziert und doch sind es 10kg, die wir Meile über Meile über den SWCP schleppen werden.

7/4/2022 SWCP Day 1, part 4