DAY 5 HARTLND QUAY TO MORWENSTOW

Here we were at last facing one of the most difficult sections of the Coast Path, fifteen miles from Hartland Quay to Bude, incorporating ten valleys-as soon as you’re down one, you’re back up again.  Look at the elevation stat below!  Now, we are not idiots, so we had decided to split this into two days.  Luckily, the village of Morwenstow is roughly half way, and has a pub with accommodation; a no brainer!

We left at 9.30am in a drizzle, and into a headwind, but a mile later at Speke’s waterfall, the rain had stopped.  I thought we had already been up and down the first valley, but it turned out to be just a normal uphill moment on the Path-Paul told me that the infamous series of valleys would commence in the latter half of today’s walk.

Ahead I could see walkers following a path along a high, narrow ridge which I did not like the look of one bit, but to my relief, the official Coast Path offered an alternate route along the valley beneath the ridge, followed by a gradual ascent to the cliff top.  The sun began to make an appearance, and the going was good as we covered grassy tracks on ground as level as it gets!

At 11.45am we stopped at a bench for a first lunch break (packed lunch provided by the Hartland Quay Hotel as there are no shops around there) and Paul gave me the welcome news that we had already covered half the distance for today’s walk, around four and a half miles.  Although the toughest section was to follow, at least we had plenty of time to rest as necessary.  Shortly afterwards, at Welcombe Mouth, we had crossed the first valley-we had to stop four times on the ascent, and were passed by a young woman with no poles as if it was nothing at all!  Talking of poles, although they were absolutely essential, they had caused my first injury on this leg-a callous on my thumb!  I wrapped some zinc oxide tape around it, but it was useless, the combination of my sweat and the friction just loosened the tape. (I have since purchased some fingerless gym gloves with pads on the palms to address this issue).  As ever, one has to put up, shut up, and carry on regardless.  The next valley was smaller, but had a blind summit-we kept thinking we’d reached the top only to find there was a bit more, then a bit more to go.  By 1.30pm we had put valley number three behind us, so it was an opportune time to rest on a handy mound, have second lunch and congratulate ourselves on our progress so far, despite some punishing sets of steps.

Valley number four was a biggie, but as long as I could stop and rest, I felt we were coping well.  However, the descent into valley five was horrendous; extremely steep, and covered with loose scree, so we just had to take it really slowly and carefully.  The poles are great for taking the strain, although my hands felt the brunt of the pressure.  At the bottom, we crossed a bridge marking the border between Devon and Cornwall, and then took a zigzag path up through a sheep field.  Ahead, we could see the inland path to the village of Morwenstow, just half a mile away.  We reached The Bush Inn at 3.20pm, and I downed my usual gin and tonic and separate sparkling water before we went to our room for a shower and rest.  Although I was tired, my legs were a bit wobbly, I have felt much worse after other days on the Path-either I was getting fitter, or the worst was yet to come!

The evening concluded with some entertainment as it was yet another open mic night (we seem to run into these quite frequently) with a nice variety of songs played.  After a lovely rendition of Cornwall My Home, where we all sang along with the chorus, it was time for us to settle down, ready for more of the same the next day.

Stats:-

Total time 5hr 51mins; moving 3hr 31 mins.  Distance 8.78 miles.  Pace 2.5mph.  Ascent 1,875 ft.  Descent 1,525 ft.

DAY 6 MORWENSTOW TO BUDE

Toilets!  Cider!  Ice creams!  Much as I love the remote sections of the Path, I must confess the parts closer to civilisation have their attractions too.  We desperately needed refreshments today because the weather had suddenly remembered it was June, ergo summer, and the sun hadn’t just made an appearance, it was absolutely scorchio!  Actually, Paul had got caught out yesterday; because it was still a little fresh, he hadn’t realised how strong the sun was (although, maybe it was the wind?) and after showering, his face and neck had emerged glowing a subtle shade of beetroot.  Sun hats in place, we set off at 9.45am to tackle valleys six to ten.

You may remember I mentioned having a nice chat with an American couple (I shall call them T&K)  at Hartland Quay-we had seen them a couple of times during the previous day’s walk, and again at breakfast at The Bush Inn.  Today we passed each other a few times (as one of us rested, the other got ahead).  But, I hear you cry, what happened on the actual walk?

I described valley number six as being quite good, aside from an area of loose scree close to the edge.  (I may sound a bit obsessed by scree, but I came a cropper on it previously, my foot slipping away beneath me, though my well padded rear took the brunt on that occasion).  By 11.40am we had scaled valley seven, which I described as the toughest one so far (including yesterday), I had to stop many times for a break, but it evened out for a bit afterwards, so we had a bit of respite.

We had seen some radar dishes in the distance on the top of a headland, which, when we reached them, turned out to be GCHQ Bude.  Paul went off to read some of the signs on the fence (it’s a man thing) while I worked out that although it looked as if the Path went straight ahead, we needed to go off to the right, through a pretty section of wildflowers, to hug the coastline.  A short time before, we had passed T&K, which meant we were astonished to suddenly see them resting on a bench ahead of us!  Apparently, they had walked straight on at GCHQ, cutting out the headland, though they had had to scramble over a fence to get back onto the Path proper!

At 12.45pm we reached Steeple Point, where there is not very much aside from a car park, and a very welcome public toilet.  For all the previous days I had had to wait until we arrived at our accommodation for relief (another reason for splitting it into manageable chunks) but today I could drink away merrily!  We conquered valley eight shortly afterwards, and pushed on to the Sandymouth Cafe, where I downed a long, cold cider.  It was nice to have a proper sit down, and T&K joined us-it was very busy there, but we were getting closer to Bude with every step.  Actually, it was 2.6 miles away according to Komoot-we set off again at 2.30pm along a grassy track.  Easy going, but yikes, was it hot!  On the outskirts of Bude, we stopped at another cafe for an ice cream (I don’t mention lunch in my voice memos, but I assume we had arranged another packed lunch from last night’s pub, so we were very well fed and watered today!).  At this point, rather than heading straight for our hotel, Paul reprogrammed Komoot to take us to where we had parked our car, so we could drive it to the hotel.  We started walking down various streets in the town that didn’t look familiar at all;  I was getting to the tired and grumpy stage now so we stopped to review the situation.  Basically, Paul had messed up-we were in Burnview Road, whereas we’d actually parked in Downs View Road.  As we were closer to our hotel, we headed straight there, and Paul made up for his error by going to collect the car while I took a bath.

Later that evening we headed out to find somewhere to eat, and were a bit disappointed, as we couldn’t find anywhere in the centre of town (it’s a reasonably sized place), so we ended up at The Brendon Arms, where T&K were staying (I’d chosen a cheaper option) and had a decent meal there.  Actually, it was also an opportunity to say our farewells to T&K as they appeared in the dining room as we were on our puddings-they were carrying on to Land’s End, but Bude was our end point for now.

Well, that was another stretch successfully completed, and no injuries either!  I thought I had cracked the blister problem with the silicon caps, and I’d managed not to fall over.  We were relieved to be feeling good after completing a tricky section.  Planning for September 2025, Falmouth to St Austell, was next on the agenda.  The blog will cover this after a short break-we are actually back out on the Path walking from St Austell to Plymouth later this month (April 2026) and then we will be focusing on moving house!  More to come in May, including my grumpiest and most miserable day on the Path…

Stats:-

Total time 6hrs 8mins; moving 3hrs 17 mins.  Distance 8.06 miles.  Pace 2.4mph.  Ascent 1,150 ft.  

Descent 1,525 ft.