Log No 282. Sat 12th Apr 2014 - Combe to Bigbury-on-Sea, 17 miles (4300 miles walked)

We left the campsite at 07.50 walking on the main road towards Yealmpton, then taking the road south towards Newton Ferrers.

We weren't able to cross the river at Newton Ferrers so we went to Bridgend and on to Noss Mayo where a lane took us to the Coast Path.

The weather was once again fine and dry with a cool breeze and the footpath to Stoke was an easy grassy track with gentle climbs.

After Stoke it was back to normal with much steeper climbs and descents.

We met another hiker coming towards us, Chris Elliot, who, it transpired, is also walking the British Coastline. He is doing it in stages, walking for a month each year, he started in Rye and has got as far as the Gower Peninsular, he plans to finish in 2020.

Todays obstacle was the River Erme, Mick's wife, Karen, had checked out that It could be forded at low tide. When we were at Bridgend the tide appeared to be out so we were expecting to have a 5 mile detour to get across it.

We got to Erme Mouth at 12.00 and the tide was coming in, Dean and his family were on the beach and he confirmed you could cross over the river.


Not being sure how much time we had we rushed round the rocky headland to get to the river, the first place we tried proved too deep but further up it was only knee deep. An hour later and we wouldn't have been able to cross it.

Having saved ourselves 2 hours and 5 miles we could relax as our campsite was only 5 miles away.

The coastline continued to be up and down but the views were well worth the effort.

The day was getting quite cool, it had clouded over and the wind was making it very chilly.

We got to Bigbury-on-Sea at 14.30 and called into the shop for our daily provisions.

Burgh Island is a tidal island about 300m offshore and watching from a distance saw, what we assumed to be, an unusual bus taking folk off and on to the island.

The campsite was just outside the village and we had the tents up by 15.30.

A shorter than expected 16 miles.