Saturday 31st May 1997 - Day One, Newbury, Exeter, Barnstaple, Nr. Westward Ho! Next

It was a cool overcast morning at Newbury station at 9 O'clock. This was it, planning over - it was the real thing. I stood about for 2 minutes then went and checked the train times. After another 10 minutes the Intercity 125 train arrived and I got on with half a dozen other people. I'd never noticed before how narrow the gangways are and I had difficulty getting the rucksack and myself through, but I couldn't leave my rucksack in the luggage racks because they were full of backpackers stuff. I carefully made my way down the gangway and found an empty pair of seats, one for me and one for my rucksack and sat down. I kept telling myself to relax, this was to be a relaxing, no definite schedule, time out holiday but I was too excited and passed the time trimming some loose strings on the rucksack. The plan was to get trains out to Barnstaple, then walk to Newquay and get trains back.

The idea to walk the path started the previous year after I had bought my dad a book for his birthday entitled '500 mile walkies' by Mark Wallington. Then he lent it back to me to read. It's one of the funniest travel books I have ever read, and I recommend it to anyone. It chronicles Mark walking the entire South West Coastal Path from Minehead to Poole with a borrowed dog called Boogie, and from his descriptions it inspired me to walk the path too, although I wouldn't borrow a dog and I would have to do it in bits over five years or so.

Elsewhere in the carriage were several backpacker looking types lounging about. After several stations, a couple of hours and two tunnels which tried to blow in then suck out my ear drums, we arrived at Exeter St David's station and I struggled down the rest of the gangway with the cumbersome rucksack. Exeter was where I would get the connection to Barnstaple and start the walk.

Outside the station I had a craving for Pizza. I didn't know at the time but Exeter 'St David's' and Exeter 'might get a pizza' are about half a mile apart. In the centre I walked up and down the main street and noticed two things. If I wanted a hi-fi, shoes or beef burger I was OK. If I wanted a pizza I was out of luck. A helpful young man advertising fruit juice with a huge pack of the stuff on his back gave me a free sample. It was wonderful and I needed it. I walked around a bit more and saw two people dressed in white with long white robes covering milk crates they were standing on making themselves extra tall, with white pointy hats and white painted hands and faces doing slow mime to slow electronic synthesizer music. It was quite mesmerising to watch them. Busking and Amnesty International must be part of Saturday in Exeter judging by what was going on.

I left Mr and Mrs White to it and quite by chance around by the cathedral I came upon a Pizza Express and went in to be their first customer that lunchtime. I ordered mushroom pizza and apple juice and it was all going well until my waitress disappeared, she was easy to spot because she was the one with the nose ring. I was going to have fruit salad but time pressed so I paid the bill and left. I was still a bit thirsty so I went into a wine shop instead and bought a can of fizzy drink. Getting into the shop with the rucksack had been easy enough but having paid for the drink I found that there were so many displays about that I couldn't turn around. I had to do a sort of reverse shuffle back out of the shop.

Back at Exeter St David's I got a Newquay timetable and a single to Barnstaple with ten minutes to go. The Barnstaple train was a sprinter type, only this one limped. The railway to Barnstaple is a single track and slow, with woods, streams, stone cottages and little roads running along side it. It stopped at two stations on the way, if you wanted to get off at any others you had to ask the guard. It stopped for un-barriered crossings, it stopped three times for an electrical fault and it stopped once for trespassers on the line. When it moved, it moved slowly but I didn't care, it was all part of winding down for the holiday.

In front of me were an elderly couple and standing by the doors a woman with a child in a pushchair. The old man suggested she come and sit down because there was room for the pushchair in front of them. She did and they got talking. Amazingly they had both come from London, and then found out that they lived only two streets apart. It's a small world. Opposite a young girl dressed in black and festooned with earrings yawned, flopped over her seat and bemoaned the fact that she had woken up at 5 o'clock that morning. Poor love, wait until she's got children.

Eventually we arrived at Barnstaple and the end of the line, and we were only half an hour late for a one hour journey. I found the start of the coastal path but first walked into Barnstaple to look around and buy some fizzy water. Once over the wide bridge Barnstaple has a number of narrow pedestrianised streets with lots of small shops and small versions of the big shops found in other towns. It was altogether a pleasant place to walk around for half an hour.

Back at the railway station I started on the path. The coastal path here is on the old railway line, where the railway used to continue before it was dug up and resurfaced. The walking was very flat but a bit monotonous. I was passed by dozens of cyclists struggling against the wind as they returned to Barnstaple. The path overlooked salt marshland where lots of sheep were grazing, and now and again there were sea blocking ramps where the sheep could go up and over then under the path to their fields but the water couldn't. On and on the path went and a muscle in my bum was really beginning to ache. Halfway along the first straight stretch from Barnstaple the tent fell out of the sleeping mats and rolled down the side of the path. I picked it up and tied it on again.

Eventually I reached Instow and passed through a line of railway cottages overlooking the water, a tunnel where the railway used to go and then approaching the first road with an old signal box on it I met an elderly couple. They used to live in Swindon which is about twenty miles from my home near Newbury. She had visited Newbury once but got frightened off by the Robin Hood roundabout, a notorious Newbury junction on the A34 before there were traffic lights on it, and they had now retired to Bideford. I rested in Instow for a while, the ferry which I hoped was going to take me straight across the river and save a few miles of walking hadn't run since 14:45 on the previous day so it clearly wasn't going to be running now. It was going to be the long route and I needed charging up.

At John's quickie mart I bought hot pasty, apple pies, soup and drink, then ate and drank some whilst resting behind the estuary wall. I was getting tired but had to go on. The first bridge was a road bridge only, a monstorous construction with no chance of walking it, so it was all the way down to Bideford. The east side seemed a bit crummy and after viewing the local toilets I decided not to bother, I'd save my custom for elsewhere. I had a can of fruit juice on the west side and I limped on now feeling extremely tired, aiming for the camp site near Westward Ho! I finally got there at 9 O'clock that evening as the sun was getting low. Seeing a couple of tents in the field whilst walking up the road was a major relief. I set up my tent near them feeling absolutely exhausted. I had time for a five minute lie down on the sleeping bag before having a wash, then five minutes in the sleeping bag before...it was 4am. Not much I could do at 4am so I fell asleep again.

Next Page Day two, 01st June 97, Westward Ho!, Bucks Mills, Clovelly.

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