June 19, 2017

Brixham

After deciding to cut what I was carrying to minimum including my bivvy sack I was prepared for the possibility of no available B&B.  Mind you, that meant no mattress and no sleeping bag.  Very basic.  Martin drove me back to Kingswear across the River Dart estuary from Dartmouth and I started walking.  Once again it was a glorious morning.  I hadn't gone far along the climb out of Kingswear when a couple with a spaniel caught up to me and we stopped and chatted.  It turned out that David and Angie Walsh and Fudge, the dog, were also walking the whole length of the South West Coast Path in support of Spaniel Aid UK.

The forested path just outside of Kingswear

As we continued on our way they quickly left me behind and then disaster struck.  I was tightening up the waist strap on my backpack when it broke.  That meant I had to walk for the rest of the day with my pack supported by just my shoulders, not a very enjoyable experience.  I had to walk what turned out to be a strenuous section in very hot sunshine with a limited amount of water and my backpack hanging on my shoulders.  Needless to say as I got more and more hot and tired I started looking for easier routes to take.  I tried two and they were both shorter but not without problems.  The first ended up in the corner of a field with a barbed wire fence and no gate.  The second route seemed to take me over the highest land around Brixham.  But I made it just as my water ran out and I found a B&B easily with help from the Information Centre in a shop by the harbour.  A pint of beer and a pint of shandy quickly provided much needed fluids and a fast recovery.

Brixham Harbour in the evening