Skipping Ahead

It has been raining still raining, and it's been a psychological and logistical challenge.  Even on mornings when it's not raining, the dew is so heavy that my tent is soaked and is still wet when crammed into its stuff sacks. If there's a good sunbreak later in the day I take everything out to dry, making my pack lighter for the rest of the day.  Unless it starts raining again. I have a waterproof pack cover, but it doesn't keep rainwater from going down the back of my neck. Most of it works its way down my legs and into my socks through Butt Crack Creek, but some finds refuge in my pack, redampening my tent and clothes and sleeping bag. And making everything heavy again. For Pete's sake.

I can tell you that sleeping in a damp bag inside a wet tent is just a little less enjoyable than you might imagine it would be. So I've been spending some nights indoors. Rooms in the coastal villages, if you can get them at all, are quaint and cute, or posh and upscale. But they're all expensive. So I go inland, where they're more affordable. And to tell the truth, I like the inland pubs and inns better.  About 3 miles does it.

This means I need to walk 21 miles, on average, to make 15 trail miles. But it's worth it, well worth it. I see more cool stuff on my trips to and from the path than I do on the path itself. That's a bonus I didn't expect. 

And the people out on the coast seem grouchier somehow.  I get it. Like me, they've blocked out a hunk of summertime, made sacrifices and shuffled commitments to get themselves  out on the coast or onto the beaches . Now they're there, and what do they get for all their efforts? Butt Crack Creeks, that's what.

So maybe that's another reason I enjoy going inland so much. And the best pub I've found, run by the best people around is the Exeter in Modbury. I contrived to spend four nights there, either by walking extra miles to and from the trail or utilizing busses. My last night with the Exeter was Sunday, when they close early, at five.  There were four of us still inside when Nikki and Daryl, the owners, closed the pub doors and opened the bottles of 'French' wine. Then let their six dogs in to help us drink it.  Nothing gives you a sense of belonging like drinking wine with a friendly bunch of humans and dogs in a building that's housed countless similar scenes over the seven centuries of the Exeter's existence. This ritual has been re-enacted by generations for 700 years in this same building. It feels like home, it feels like it should, it feels like enough.

 And this morning when I left, it felt wrong. But I'm back out on the coast, back out on the trail.

According to the online trail guide I've hiked 466 of the 630 miles of the Coastal Path, which leaves 164 miles of trail ahead of me. But I passed an official looking mileage marker 56 miles back. What does it all mean? 

As they say here, "The maths don't add up, does they?" 

So, I may have a round 164 miles of this Coast Path ahead of me, or I may have a precise 119.5.  One thing I know for sure... I've got 9 days left that I can devote to walking.  More than that, and I'll miss my flight home.

In the last week I've seen a lot of coastline, a lot of country, and even more fog and rain. 

Here's a nice view of waves crashing against a rocky coast.  On this day, I'd been listening to the waves below me for a couple hours before walking into a fog hole big enough to actually see them down there.

This is a cool and creepy tree on one of the pathways from Modbury to the coast.

And a cool and creepy house.

Saint Edward church in Modbury.

I've finished the six of the eight "week sections" of the Coastal Path. I've now skipped over the "week seven" section by bus to move on to the last section. I've looked forward to seeing the Jurassic Coast for a long time now and want to make sure I've walked it, and hopefully found some fossils, before going home. Whether I get back to the week seven section or not, we'll see.

One of my family members wondered if I'd met any interesting through hikers on the trail. Most of the other hikers are out for the day, or for a week at most. But I did meet a few.   On an open ferry crossing, I met a guy who appeared at first to be a mad scientist, but turned out to be a kindly Buddhist. Or something. Halfway across, the ferryman noticed a snail hitching a ride across on my backpack.  My new acquaintance shot his hand out, grabbed the snail. Maybe I looked hungry or dangerous because he said, "I'll just keep him safe from you and give him a new home on the other side."  When we got off the boat he went left, ignoring several trail markers, snail in hand. I waited for him to come back to the trail, but he never did. I know Mr Snail's welfare wasn't really my responsibility, but he was on my pack after all, and I don't know what the mad Buddhist scientist did with it.  Maybe he roughed it up a little.  It was raining again after all, and folks were getting grouchy again out there on the coast. 

Butt Crack Creek can make a body irritable and unpredictable, you know.