June 27, 1997: Exmouth to Budleigh Salterton
Harold, Tosh and Margie in Exmouth
One of our most ambitious coast walks, the penultimate expedition in the long series, began at 9:45 on the morning of Friday, June 27. Clutching a black coffee and a banana cream doughnut I boarded coach J of the 9:45 Plymouth train at Paddington, and – with my companions – found our reserved seats. As usual I was joined by Tosh and Harold, but this time we were accompanied by another veteran, Marge Rogers, who had once again arrived from Boston to take part in the adventure. Train arrangements for this trip had been complicated when Harold lost our original tickets in Tesco – an event so upsetting that Tosh had been given the task of starting all over.
Today’s journey was, by our earlier Paddington to Penzance epics, a short one. I had told the Lees that we would probably eat on the train and they produced a packed lunch of carrot rounds and cheese sandwiches (well, their idea of a cheese sandwich is a hunk of cheese in a hard roll). This did save me from another Great Western Railway cheeseburger; and I chomped along with the rest of them and sipped a Diet Coke as we neared a rain-soaked Devon at noon. By half-past we had detrained at Exeter and switched to the waiting shuttle to Exmouth. This train stopped every three minutes at little country halts, including an MOD site, Lympstone Commando – which had platform placards warning the casual visitor against alighting without proper authorization.
There was some debate about whether to put on rain gear before getting off at the end of the line at 1:19, but in the event I forestalled this decision with a charge through Exmouth’s station via a subterranean passage and up into the sheltering arms of the Strand pub. Here we had a leisurely whiskey and slowly donned our own tools of ignorance. I must say it was especially dispiriting to begin a walk in a fine drizzle, though, in a month that had set rainfall records, not unexpected.
It was 1:50. I knew we had to find the esplanade and I followed the advice of some traffic signs to head south. I was having trouble keeping my rain cape hood on top of my white UCLA baseball cap and at one point the latter ended up in the street after a gust of wind, a dirty stain covering its crown in the first five minutes of the walk. We passed some gardens and turned right, finding the seafront at last. In spite of the gray weather it was easy to see across the estuary, where, at Starcross, we had finished our walk exactly one year ago today.
Tosh and Harold fell on a kiosk and purchased candy bars while Margie had her first mint choc ice. These three trailed well behind me as I pressed forward, still in a light drizzle, along the pavements of the esplanade. On my left vacationing Britain was sitting in the Ford Fiesta reading its newspaper in an endless parking lot. A corporation Sisyphus was sweeping wet sand off the sidewalk.
Margie protests when a cow joins our party at the High Land of Orcombe.
At last the road came to an end and I used a paved path to switchback up to a green cliff top. The weather was becoming dryer as we began a lovely, mostly level stroll along the sandstone cliffs of the High Land of Orcombe. A worried mother asked us if we knew where her children had gotten to and, as we had seen them turn off to view a cave, we were able to give her directions. The view ahead was dominated by an MOD shooting range on a little headland to the right and, to the left, by the huge caravan colony of Sandy Bay. Here, at the two mile mark, we were able to take refuge in the Beachcomber Bar and Restaurant and to seek some refreshment. The bar had just closed, but we sat here anyway while some efficient teenaged girls from the restaurant fetched us tea and soft drinks. We had a nice rest, used the loos, and then climbed steeply uphill, away from the hurly burly of the caravan park with its toy trams and its pensioners and their dogs.
After Sandy Bay – a distant view of Budleigh Salterton
We had only one summit to surmount, the first two black arrows of some thirty-five on this trip, inching our way up West Down Beacon, over 400 feet in elevation. Then we descended, accompanied eventually by a golf course on our left and reached Budleigh Salterton at 5:00. We headed over to the high street and had a celebratory pint (well, Margie drank only a mineral water) and ate some peanuts at the Feathers, a cheerful pub. Here we got directions to our b&b, but these required us to climb steeply back up the hill in the direction of the Exmouth Road. Harold stopped several times to hear the same news from passersby – we still had a hike ahead of us. At last we reached the top of the road and found our b&b. As we pulled in at 5:45 I posed our group beneath the antlers of some forgotten deer perched above the whitewashed lintel of this cottage
The accommodations were outstanding for a b&b; we each had an en suite bedroom and we were soon getting cleaned up and ready to spend another fifteen minutes hiking back down the hill to our evening meal. Every time we made this circuit we had to step over the corpse of a recently deceased woodpecker. Our landlady had phoned ahead to make a reservation for us at the Salterton Arms, and shortly before 7:30 we were studying the extensive menu and supping our ale. I had a half of John Smith’s. In the upstairs restaurant I had an indifferent sirloin steak and the Lees tried out a not particularly successful roast suckling pig. The chief feature of this crowded establishment, as far as I could tell, were the two alpine waitresses, who had to dash up and down a flight of stairs every time a dish had to be cleaned from a table or a new course served. One of these young ladies arrived to inquire if there was anything wrong with the pig – after the Lees had left a lot on their plates. Everyone had a gooey dessert and coffee and then, too bloated to justify a taxi back to the top of the hill, we walked it once again in the twilight, dead woodpecker and all.
I called Dorothy on a mobile phone while the local Yorkie circled my feet, and at 10:00, I was ready for bed.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: