Wonderful food, a warm welcome and a beautiful location.

SWCP 25×25 is Underway

At 7am this morning Holly waved me and my brother Greg, along with Rex of course, off on the first leg of the 25 day challange. Having listened to heavy rain battering the van roof for much of the night we were relieved to have a dry and clear start to the walk and made excellent progress, reaching Porlock Wier by 10:00.  As this is classed as a whole day’s walk in the guide we felt we’d done well and were catapaulted along the next leg to Lynmouth.  We were really burning up the miles until we hit a landslip which we had to work our way around; losing half an hour and a lot of energy in the process.

By 3:10 we had reached Lynton which should have been the final destination for the day, but it was still early and we had plenty of energy left so we headed on for another three miles. Since tomorrows walk involves about 8000 ft of climb I’m very happy to be an hour ahead before even starting. 8000ft is freaking ridiculous!

As we walked we enjoyed great views across to South Wales, met goats, deer and of course some Exmoor Ponies. As I write this (in the pub with wifi) Holly is making beef stew and I think the heavens could pour a Biblical deluge on the van tonight and it wouldn’t wake me up.

Having been very nervous yesterday I’m now very relieved to be underway at last and will be even more relieved to get tomorrows mega stage finished.

Miles covered 24.5

Apologies for lack of photos, upload failure.