Bude to Crackington Haven, 16.4km, 760 metres of climbing

‘Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead, don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow, just walk beside me and be my friend’. Winnie the Pooh

Barbara set a cracking pace out of Bude this morning and Paul had cracked up long before we reached today’s destination of Crackington Haven. [Editor Barbara says that is so corny].

The path started at the sea lock on the famous Bude Canal. A lot of anglers were out this morning, all evenly spaced at about 20 metre centres along the edge of the canal. A gentle climb to Compass Point where there is a small compass beacon. It has the eight points of the compass around its fascia. Locally it is called the pepper pot.

The first section was an easy cliff top grassy path to Widemouth Bay (pronounced Widmouth), a popular beach. Lots of people there on a nice Sunday morning. Surfers, swimmers, sun seekers, life guards, cafes, a pub, general store, campers, a bus service and the last public toilets until Crackington Haven 15 km away.

From here the hard work began with a succession of punishing climbs.  The highest cliffs gave some superb viewpoints. This coastline was even higher and more rugged than yesterday but you knew it would inevitably be cut by deep and steep valleys. Some of the valleys had road access down to the shore so we met a quite a few people doing short walks to one or two of the high points. The path today was like the Paekak Escarpment track on steroids.

We have trying to think of the words in English that describe the simple act of walking. So far we have come up with:

Stride, stomp, saunter, stroll, amble, jaunt, march, meander, wander, hike, lope, wend, promenade, roam, prowl, ramble, plod, tramp, strut, stagger, swagger, skip, hop, limp, shuffle, prance, tiptoe, traipse, gambol, slink, totter.

We do a lot of these in a day.

As we start out we march, stride, strut or swagger (like Jagger?).

As the day goes on we stroll, amble, and wander.

When we are lost we roam, wend and prowl.

When we are sore we tip toe and limp.

Near the end of the day we plod and stagger.

Going down to dinner in the evening we traipse, shuffle and totter.

But in our dreams as we imagine tomorrow we prance, skip, gambol and lope along.