Day 17 - Lynmouth to Porlock - 14.9 miles

Lynmouth looked very picturesque in the morning sunshine and Foreland Point had changed back from yesterday's red to this morning's blue .

The path out of Lynmouth is steep but lined with banks of 

white bluebells and primroses

I met Mary and Ben who told me that they always make a point of sitting on a bench and if there's an inscription or dedication, they spend a few minutes trying to think of that person and their families. Sometimes a long life, sometimes short. 

Their dog Oscar, had only last week been bitten by an adder and by the time they got home Oscar's face was swelling. 

At the vet's they were told there'd been a recent spate of adder bites but fortunately  were eventually able to get some "anti-venom".

Oscar, half collie, half pointer was still looking a little dopey. He had lovely velvety ears. 

Half an hour later, just beyond Butter Hill, I met a young couple from Lynmouth out for a walk. They told me they'd decided to turn back because there was an adder on the path. I wasn't keen to turn back uphill so continued cautiously, eyes peeled. 
The concentration certainly makes you forget about blisters!

After rounding The Foreland I was walking into quite a brisk wind and drspite the sunshine, it was cold so on went the hat, gloves and muffler.

The next section of the walk goes through steep wooded slopes. At Dogsworthy Combe I met Hakan who was enjoying a few days of calm.

Hakan is a violinist with English Baroque Soloists under John Elliot Gardiner. Between concerts last weekend at St.Martins in the Fields and next week at Saffron Walden, Hakan had decided not to rush home to Stockholm but to enjoy a few days of the gentleness of Exmoor. 

We discussed the lower baroque tuning, at 415Hz,  gut strings and violin neck angles and moved on to bicycle technologies. 

We could have talked for ages. A lovely gentleman - I'll definitely look out for when they're next in London.

Along the way, between the trees you get marvellous views out to sea.

The Gorse and The Gower

The Pines and Penarth

I stopped for a while at Sister's fountain. A lovely quiet place.  I thought of family and friends .....

and counted our blessings.

The SWCP runs through Porlock Weir but I'd made a mistake in booking a guest house in Porlock rather than Porlock Weir. To avoid what I assumed would be a long steep trudge between the two, I thought I'd be clever and cut off the path earlier on to the Coleridge Way so I could maintain altitude. It meant I would arrive directly in to Porlock. This meant I stayed high up and walked through farmland and had fabulous views out to sea across whole hillsides of gorse.

On the way I got talking to a herdsman who worked two flocks, each of 1000 sheep. They were Exmoor Horn, some crossed with Leicester Blue, Scottish Blackface and Suffolk. He said some farmers use Welsh mountain but these would be farms high up on Exmoor where if it was a bad winter it'd be the Welsh that would survive longer. YEEEAAAAHHH!!!

There seems to a thing about Porlock and tall chimneys.

Staying at the rather quiet Lorna Doone guesthouse so went to The Castle pub to watch Manchester City play Real Madrid in the European semi-finals. What a fantastic high quality game. Supper was washed down very easily with a couple of pints of Exmoor Ale. Early bed ....but only after the final whistle.

Total distance so far = 208.3 miles

Total ascent so far = 33 769 feet