the feet – 15 Aug, 2018
Day 12 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Barnstaple to Lynton
Distance: 20km
Cumulative distance: 292km
I started this walk out with two pairs of hiking boots – my trusty Mammuts which I’d had since mid-2015 and which had taken me across parts of Iceland, the UK and New Zealand, and my recently purchased (brand withheld), which I’d tried wearing in on the streets of Sydney for three weeks before I flew out. The Mammuts were getting on a fair bit and starting to wear right out, but I was determined to extract as much as possible from them before throwing them away once and for all and switching to the (brand withheld). You tend to get very attached to hiking boots, especially when you find a decent pair. I’d fallen in love with these Mammuts from the moment I managed to get them for almost half price in Doncaster, and that bond grew across the unique landscapes of Iceland, up and down a bunch of Scottish munros, on the Milford Track in New Zealand…you get the drift. If boots could talk, they’d have some cracking stories to tell, a bit like backpacks. And I knew these boys still had a bit left in them, so they deserved their crack at the Coast Path before I finally switched to the (brand withheld). It all meant I’d been carrying my new boots around in the bottom of my bag since the start of the walk, adding a good kilogram, maybe two, to my base weight, while taking up valuable room in my 42 litre pack. At some stage I’d have to make the switch, which would mean lightening the load on my back – a moment I was very much looking forward to. And today proved to be the day…but I shall come to that.
My first target this morning was a little town called Bratton Fleming. There were no long distance trails for me to follow today, it was just me and the OS map trying to pick out a route up country. I started on a busy road, then ducked off up a public footpath into a forest but that didn’t seem to get me anywhere. So I was back onto the road, dodging cars for a few miles before heading up a sharp hill and eventually into town. I found a little shop/café/bakery and sat in for a little while eating a couple of sausage rolls and thinking about blisters. I pulled out the map again and drew a path up to Wistlandpound Reservoir which would be my next checkpoint. The public footpaths seemed to make sense on the page, but the reality was a damn sight more difficult than all that. The problem was most of these footpaths were over farmland, and simply not waymarked. Once again these were not very well trodden, so I just tried to point myself in the right direction and keep making progress. I thought several times I was lost but I managed to keep finding my way. The grass was particularly wet though, and the ground very uneven and this caused me two problems. Firstly, the blisters were working overtime, and a new one was starting to form on my right pinky toe which was probably the most painful on the lot. Secondly, the poor old Mammuts which had been so good to me were unable to keep out the water they were picking up through the grass which was knee-high in some sections. For the first time on this walk, my boots were soaked through and every step came with an unsatisfying squelch. I discovered that walking through wet grass was worse than walking through rain when it came to keeping your feet dry, certainly in these boots which had proven to be very waterproof over the years. I remember one hike in Iceland of almost 30km where we walked up from the coast, through two glaciers and down into the Thorsmork Valley. We powered through heavy rain for the first hour and had to walk through snow at the top, but my trusty Mammuts somehow managed to keep my feet dry through all that.
I squelched my way through the overcast conditions to the reservoir, and walked on by and picked up more roads and farm tracks to a little village called Perracombe. This was where I pulled the trigger. The blisters were killing me and I was sick of walking around in pools of water. I sat down outside a little church, took off my boots and chucked them into the bin. I changed socks (noticing the water had served one purpose in cleaning out the blisters) and switched to the (brand witheld). My mood lifted immediately – my feet were dry again and after a few steps the blisters didn’t seem so painful. Plus I was carrying less weight and all of a sudden I had a shite load more room in the bottom of my pack. The only downer was I couldn’t find a shop in town but that didn’t matter, my spirits had well and truly been lifted again. I went uphill out of town and had to walk on the A39 for a bit which wasn’t pleasant. It’s only single lane traffic in both directions but they were going quick, and one fella driving in the opposite direction to me stopped and offered me a lift ‘otherwise you’re going to get killed’. I thanked him but told him there was a public footpath not too far ahead, and fortunately after about a mile I was off the road and back into a farm.
The grass here wasn’t as long thankfully, and the waymarking more straight forward with the coastline visible now and only a mile or so away. I walked through a field of sheep which bounded away from the fence in a frenzy as I approached – all except one poor girl who had managed to get her head stuck underneath some barbed wire. I dumped my bag and slowly approached the startled ewe, establishing myself in her peripheral vision to get her used to my presence. It was one of those square wire fences with a couple of rows of barbed wire running along the top, and her wool was completely tangled in the barbed wire meaning she couldn’t back away. I slowly untangled it from the barbs and it eventually sprang free, so I held it up creating a much bigger opening and tapped her on the nose a few times with my map, and she bounded free and shakily went to find the rest of her flock. There were only a few more km of road walking to the campsite. I’m looking at a 35km day to Minehead tomorrow which marks the end (well actually the start) of the Coast Path. I’ll have a day off there before resuming on Saturday.
