Josie Travels

Recommended route: Porlock Weir to Lynmouth – 12.1 miles
My route: Porlock to Lynmouth – 13.1 miles (except I hitchhiked the last few miles because my feet were falling apart)

I woke up with the sun and had a lovely hour walking around the village of Porlock without anyone else around, feeling so smug about being a morning person for once in my life. It didn’t last, because it took me bloody hours to pack up my camp and set off. Late, as usual.

It was an easy walk through Porlock Marsh, where I was followed by two crows who I think were waiting for me to drop dead so they could feast on my corpse. Sucks to be them, I’m far too stubborn to give up that easily. By the time I reached Porlock Weir, the actual starting point of this section, I was wrecked.

It didn’t help crossing the boulders that gave me flashbacks to the absolute physical and mental trauma of hiking the Fish River Canyon. My feet had blisters, bad ones, and all I had in my first aid kit was some small plasters and some duct tape. I bandaged up my feet as best I could and carried on my way.

While I enjoyed visiting the tiny Culbone Church, after another miserable afternoon of humid, sweaty woodland walking, with countless detours due to landslides, I was absolutely done. My feet were on fire and I couldn’t take another step. Unfortunately, due to the aformentioned stuborness, I couldn’t just lay down and die, so I hobbled my way up a steep and dusty hill to a bus stop at County Gate.

Of course, I just missed the bus by 5 minutes and had to wait for 2 hours for the next one. I tried calling some local taxi services with no luck, and eventually a nice local couple took pity on me and gave me a lift right into Lynmouth. I caught a bus up the disgustingly steep hill to my campsite, Sunny Lyn, where I sat in the sun, drank cider, and tried not to cry at the absolute state of my feet.

I treated myself to Thai food for dinner, and decided to spend two nights there to rest. After one day. Dishonour on me, dishonour on my cow, dishonour on my whole family. At least I got to spend the day in a cafe writing my dissertation… 🙃

You can see the full itinerary here.

If you want to see more, you can view full album here.

You can also follow the journey on Instagram!