Hartland Quay to Bude.
“Fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life … the great stories go to those who don’t give in to fear.”
Donald Miller - A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.
After getting off the path at Hartland Quay with Charlie I’d started to build a bit of a monster in my head of the next stretch. I’d heard horror stories from other walkers, over-read reviews and guides online and sculpted a monolith of doubt and anxiety over the 15 mile day that awaited me. 11 hills and 11 valleys apparently. I was going to put it off until after the summer but I think Dad knew me well enough to see that I would probably have spent all summer adding clay to the monolith and would never have done it. The hotel was booked for June 7th, less than two weeks after I had last stepped off the path.
Before I go any further into detail of the day’s walk it’s important to set the scene, for so many years my anxiety had ruled my life, preventing me from progressing, stifling interpersonal relationships and completely undermining any efforts to do anything ‘big’. A doomed unhealthy relationship that had taken up far too much space in my head for far too many years had erupted and left me with absolutely no idea of who I was anymore, bereft of any direction and with very little in the way of hope. My mind fractured, like when you punch one of those plastic CD jewel cases. I broke down at work, in the smoking shelter, in front of someone I hardly knew.
“Are you okay Craig you seem very quiet?’
“Absolutely fine Jon, never been better, just going to clear my desk, take a half day and go home and kill myself”
It slipped out too easily, like talking about the football scores. It scared me, the tears came, blurred my vision and I didn’t see again for about three hours, until long after I’d been admitted to Holly Court.
They can’t section me, I’m not MAD.
—————————
“I've been considering oblivion tonight,
I'll squeeze the last few drops of the bruised dark fruit,
And pretend that I just might:
Might get the viking funeral,
Might OD on the lawn,
Might end up immortal like an old soul song.”
Dave Hause - Bearing Down
—————————
Therapy had saved my life, but the rest of the hard yards still needed to be walked. I had to solidify what I had learned, challenge myself, take the anxiety by the scruff of the neck and put it back where it belonged. The path was the beginning of it, but up to now I hadn’t really pushed myself, and this brings us back to Hartland Quay.
Arriving at the start point at around 8.15 am I noticed a few other solo walkers milling about, delaying, not wanting to be the first ones out on the path, I couldn’t allow myself to stop and dwell so I snapped a couple quick photos then pushed out along the hedgerow, taking out every one of the night’s dewy cobwebs, mostly across the face. I actually have begun to enjoy this as it’s a great confirmation that I’m the first one out on the path that day.
There was a gusty South-Easterly breeze pushing against my reddening face as I remembered to get my Strava running.
Can I do this?
Why on earth am I doing this?
Perhaps I really am MAD.
The first cliff top was a huge jagged pyramid right in front of me as I started off down the slightly muddy gravel path, it looked alien, like it had been accidentally dropped there, like when you balls up in Tetris and leave the biggest piece stuck in the most inconvenient place.
The path moved to the left of it, there was no way up, this wasn’t one of the 11 and to be honest I was relieved, I wouldn’t want to go up there and have to face…
Oh fuck he’s back. The second character, the antagonist, The Drop.
“Hello you bastard.” I said out loud.
I thought I might have been able to leave him in bed for an hour and crack on with a couple of these hills, but he was ligging along behind me muttering some shit about ‘150 feet straight to the sea’ as I did the first couple ascents and descents, before us both being completely stunned and silenced by the majesty of Speke’s Mill Mouth and it’s double waterfall dropping into the bay below.
This is a wonderfully peaceful place at 8.30am but as it is accessible from inland without having to take the coast path it becomes incredibly busy with picnickers later in the day, evidenced by the amount of shit left laying around. When I finally walk the path back in the other direction I’m bringing a litter picker.
The path then rapidly goes high and narrow, and my legs got the first taste of the classic zigzag climb up steep and muddy banks with few places to stop and rest and very few options if you do misplace a foot.
The drop was laughing his head off as my heart beat through my chest, wet hands, weak legs, “oh fuck it’s happening again” I hit the deck, but bounced up quickly, a bench in the distance was my salvation. 5 minutes to sit, play some tunes and have a cigarette on a bench made from parts of the wreck of the tanker Green Ranger that ran aground in gale force weather in 1962, all on board were saved, parts of the wreck are still visible at low tide.
I scribbled down in my notes:
“Ran aground
At lowest tide,
Ship was wrecked,
But all survived.
Even at our lowest ebb,
The man was saved,
the boat was dead.”
Descending into the next valley the wind really started to pick up and on the lift to the hill fort at Embury Beacon the drizzle started too, I put on my rain jacket but it was like a sail in the gales so I took it off and trudged on. After a nice long cliff top run through the blooming summer flowers the land dropped away to reveal the wide expanse of Welcombe Mouth beach and the twisted sandstone and mudstone cliffs surrounding it.
I had to drag myself away from the jaw dropping vista and keep my eyes on my feet as I picked my way down the zig zags of jagged stone paths into the bay below. 11.30am. Smoke and a beer.
In hindsight I should have waited for my rest stop until the top of the hill out of Welcombe, an absolute bastard ascent that I couldn’t scope out from ahead as it was under thick tree cover. At the top I was really beginning to doubt myself. There was a way off the path ahead, one of very few available until the end of the 15 miles.
I wanted to tap out.
Old Craig would have tapped out.
He’s dead though,
I killed him (with kindness.)
New Craig has a go.
New Craig jumps in the pool.
New Craig tries his best.
So anyway, off I went.
I was rewarded instantly with the first of two Poet’s huts nestled high along this stretch. This was the sanctuary of Ronald Duncan, who came here every day to write until his death in 1982.
After another, gentler, ascent and descent I crossed a small wooden bridge and at the same time, the Cornwall border. North Devon legs were in the bag. Not bad for a hobby walker and his imaginary pet cloud of existential dread! 300 miles to Plymouth, the entirety of Cornwall to walk around in the mean time, every single inch.
All I can say at this point is thank god everything along this path is either gorgeous, interesting, or fun, because the gradients really do have you questioning yourself often. I’m not a ‘physically fit’ guy and I do tend to get smashed as I go around so I know I’m not making it easy for myself. I did have a new pair of £250 Salomon boots for this stretch and some new walking gear but underneath all of it there’s still just a bumbling idiot at the business end of his 30’s, poor diet, smokes like a fucking chimney, drinks a bit too much. Prime candidate for having a heart attack on the path, 8 miles from the nearest hamlet. I suppose the next person to come along could just nudge me with their heel and gently roll my corpse into the sea.
“I should have known better,
To see what I could see.
My black shroud.
Holding down my feelings,
A pillar for my enemies.
I should have wrote a letter.
And grieve what I happen to grieve.
My black shroud.
I never trust my feelings,
I waited for the remedy”
Sufjan Stevens - Should Have Known Better
So I got to just before Morwenstowe, the ‘break point’ of the walk, which is where the unfit and the elderly and the half-pissed blokes that have no fucking business being here putting themselves in danger potentially having to get the coastguard out, normally finish for the day. I had 7 miles left on the plan so I knew I had to keep going, and I remembered I had to reinstate my charity direct debit for the RNLI and get my blood pressure looked at.
Second poet’s hut of the day. Now this is my shit. Shambolic as hell, knocked up out of driftwood and rammed into the cliffside by a mad priest called Reverend Hawker so he had somewhere to come and smoke his opium.
Ascent. Descent. Bay. *repeat x 3*
My legs were feeling like they’d been smashed with hamburger mallets. Everything is screaming at me. Three and a half miles to go. 2 more ups, 3 more downs, no way off without doing at least 2 in each direction, the wind was taking my breath away, I hadn’t been able to roll a cigarette or anything since Hawkers Hut, I started to feel sorry for myself. I started to cry. I was giving up on myself. Again.
A robin landed near me, I went to take a photo and it moved away, then again and again, I was moving.
“I know that’s you and I know what you’re doing and I appreciate it.” I said aloud.
I had to check myself again “Fucking spiritual mumbo jumbo I’m not a spiritual guy”, I lied to myself.
My ankles felt fresher than ever (also a lie), and every single inch of the remaining miles hurt me, no blisters this time but every millimetre of my lower half was screeching, there was fire in my hips.
There was also fire in my belly and my head felt clearer than ever.
This is what I’m here to do. Challenge myself, find myself, do this on my own, on my terms.
How can I ever love again if I can’t love myself, if I never know exactly who I am? This is why I’m here.
I reached the top where I could see the gentle slope down into the beach at Bude where Dad was waiting for me to collapse into the car. One day’s walking was enough this time.
My head popped, ears ringing, light legged feeling, hairs standing up.
Not the drop though. I think I left him smoking opium in the Mad Priest’s hut.
Not anxiety either, although some of the feelings were comparable.
Clarity.
“I hope I haven’t already driven past my greatest moments.
I hope there is something beautiful on the horizon that’s just as impatient as I am. Something so eager, it wants to meet me halfway.
A moment that is diligently staring at its watch, trembling with nervousness, frustrated, and bursting at the seams, wondering what’s taking me so long to arrive.”
Rudy Francisco - Helium
I don’t know how, it’s going to bankrupt me, but I want to be on this path once a month at least now and I want to get this done by the time I’m 40.
Every step reveals something new, and there’s so much distance left to work it all through. Every mile is triage for a recovering mind. Inspiration to get out there and live.
On the way home I googled credit cards.
