Day 1 Brixham to Babbacombe along the “English Riviera”                        22.5km        601m ascending

Barbara thought it was a perfect days walking and loved every minute of it. I approached it with a bit of trepidation as we haven’t done a walk over 15km in four years and we don’t do many walks with 600m of climbing. But we were fine, took it fairly slowly and the old legs felt strong all day. They may not feel so good tomorrow morning. We have four more days of over 20 km but all the rest are a much more comfortable length. A lot of people don’t like this section of the coast path because it is largely “urban” walking along the shoreline of two of England’s largest and most popular seaside towns Paignton and Torquay that both front onto Torbay. Also about 80% of the walking is on hard surfaces of concrete or asphalt which makes it hard on the feet in comparison to the relatively soft surface of a natural earth or grass track.

The walk was very diverse, starting in the old fishing town of Brixham, climbing over several headlands covered in mature woodland that made them feel almost rural, passing amusement parks, thousands and thousands of brightly coloured beach huts, huge holiday parks, luxury hotels, marinas full of million dollar pleasure boats, grand terraces, a pier at Paignton, secluded little beaches with only boat access, open green parkland, hundreds of tacky souvenir shops, thousands of junk food outlets, and masses of people mostly with dogs.

I had a bad case of ear worm today and just couldn’t get this song out of my head:

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside
Oh I do like to be beside the sea
Oh I do like to stroll along the prom prom prom
Where the brass bands play tiddly-om-pom-pom

Just let me be beside the seaside
I’ll be beside myself with glee
There are lots of girls beside
That I’d like to be besides
Beside the seaside beside the sea

It was very busy on the path today especially around all the seaside resorts. The south of England has had a wet summer and a lot of people wanted to make the most of a beautiful day. I think I said yesterday it is the last weekend of the school holidays and also the first weekend of Autumn. Today it started out misty cloudy, but warm and no wind. By lunch time the cloud had gone and it was a hot sunny day, about mid 20s I would guess. It was nice and cool in the shade in the few bits of woodland but we wilted a bit out in the hot sun. Still mustn’t complain we certainly don’t want rain. Torbay has a mild  microclimate with higher than average England temperatures and mild wet winters. It started out as a fishing village but from Victorian times it attracted wealthy holiday makers due to its climate hence the name English Riviera.

When the English go down to the seaside it is a major logistical challenge, Buckets, spades, wind shelters, deck chairs, picnic baskets, ice boxes, fishing lines, gas stoves, umbrellas, flutter boards, picnic hampers, beach balls, food hampers etc, etc. Lots of people on inflatable paddle boards and canoes but very few people actually in swimming. We spoke to a couple of ladies at Brixham who had just had a swim and they said it was lovely – 16 degrees. Our pool at the Pier is 26 degrees so I don’t know about that. We will take our togs from now on as on short days we can fill in time with a swim. Barbara should have packed her wet suit. You see a lot of them at the beaches here.

We started the day with our first full English breakfast, the first of about 25 if we have one every day until we go back to London. Some other firsts today: first wild blackberries to eat, first acorn sign, got lost for the first time (not really just took a wrong turn), saw our first vintage steam train, saw our first game of cricket on the village green, first hot spot on a foot (maybe blister forming?).

So overall a very good first day with lots of variety.