Saturday 25 April 2026

Day 6 of walking
Braunton to Instow
Distance: 25kms
Total distance: 136.08kms
Climbing: 27m
Total climb: 3,877m

Another totally different day. No high cliffs and no sandy beaches.

Today could be summarised thus: from Braunton walk 12kms along the north bank of the River Taw, cross the bridge at Barnstaple and walk back 12kms along the south bank of the River Taw to Instow. That was pretty much it.

Sophie put on a wonderful continental breakfast this morning. Muesli, yoghurt, fresh fruit, sour dough bread, rhubarb compote (her own rhubarb), black currant jelly (her own black currants) and honey (from her own bee hives) and croissants. She took us outside to see her garden. She grew chard, kale, broad, runner and French beans, beetroot, celery, carrots, potatoes, corn, garlic, onions, peas, all the herbs you could imagine, cherries, plums, apples, oranges, lemons, grape fruit, rhubarb, blue berries, strawberries and black currants, tulips, roses, poppies, blue belles and heaps of other flowers, winter vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli but they were all finished. She has a large stone shed and a small glasshouse in her garden. With a friend she shares an allotment further up the road where she has a tunnel house and keeps her bees. Her husband plays golf.

The walk from Braunton was easy. An abandoned railway line is now a shared bicycle and pedestrian path. Wide, nicely sealed and absolutely flat. It is part of a coast to coast cycle trail across Devon. At first it runs alongside the Chivenor Airfield of the Royal Marines, all secure behind coils of razor wire and armed soldiers at the gates. Then it runs alongside the estuary of the River Taw. The tide was out so it was all sand and mud and very little water. It was a beautiful morning, sunny, no wind and warm. It is also Saturday and the path was busy with cyclists from 3 years old to 83 years old. It made us wish we had our bikes. Lots of runners, dog walkers and families with buggies. The cyclists are all very polite and ring their bells or call out when coming up behind you. Some call out “passing by” which is okay but doesn’t tell you which side they are passing on. The more serious cyclists call out “on your right” as they flash by. They all thank you when you step aside and when it is busy we walk single file anyway.

After about 12 kms you reach Barnstaple, a sizeable town, where you cross the River Taw on “Long Bridge” and head back from where you came on the other side of the river. This is also an old railway line, dead flat and even busier with cyclists. We wondered why until we reached Fremington Quay, a beautifully restored railway station and wharf, now a heritage centre, café, and best of all toilets. This was a thriving area for the first half of the 20^th century with the importing of coal and exporting of local clay and pottery. After about 12kms you reach Instow our stop for the night. At Instow you are only about 1km across from Braunton Burrows where we were walking yesterday afternoon.

Instow is a pretty little village at the confluence of the Taw and Torridge Rivers. Its main attraction is its beach. About half a kilometre across The Torridge river is Appledore which we will walk through tomorrow afternoon. That is after walking a long way up one bank of the river, crossing a bridge at Bideford and walking all the way back. This is all a bit complicated so I have included a photograph of a map showing the route. If there was a ferry across the mouth of the Taw and Torridge rivers in 15 minutes we would do what will have taken us two days to walk.

Over the last few days we have been on and off the “Tarka Trail”. This is a figure of eight looping trail for cyclists and walkers traversing Exmoor and Dartmoor in North Devon. It is UK’s longest traffic free cycle path and is inspired by the route travelled by Tarka the otter in the famous novel by Henry Williamson.

There are only two places to eat in Instow, The Instow Arms and The Boathouse. We went first to the Arms but it was packed and very noisy so instead moved on to The Boathouse. Only when we were sat down did we realise they “were proud to serve some of the finest seafood around”. The menu was basically oysters, cockles, mackerel, prawns, white bait, haddock, mussels, crab and on and on. We are not sea food people but fortunately saw down in the bottom corner of the menu you could order a burger. So now it is two burgers for me, one for Barbara on this trip.

Today the temperature got up to about 22°. In the morning we were under a canopy of trees but in the afternoon were out in the sunshine. Locals we talk to all say they have had a cold very wet winter and they are loving this spell of dry warm weather.