Woods at Broadhembury

A day spent putting succulents to bed for the winter and then the following afternoon I finally find my way into Jeremy's woods, which turns out to be a lovely little wildwood. Long wellington boots are essential in here due to the large amount of water which underlies pretty much everything. Even with these on the wood still needs negotiating with care, so as not to end up getting very wet.

This is a small, friendly seeming wood, tucked away up many lanes near Broadhembury. I get the sensation that people do not enter into these woods very often. I leave huge galumphing footprints in the deep moss behind me which I hope will spring back after I leave. It is almost like walking on a floating green river of plants and moss. Nothing is certain here; what appears to be solid ground quite often isn't. Trees cannot be relied upon to bear weight if you lean against them. Apparently solid branches are actually soft and can just collapse with the slightest touch. Trees fall over and then they regrow themselves from the disintegrating horizontal trunks.

Sidmouth to Budleigh Salterton

A couple of good long walks up over the hills and cliffs to Budleigh Salterton in what turned out to be better weather in September than we had most of the summer.

It takes about three and a half hours to walk the roughly seven miles to Budleigh though at this time of the year you are walking into the sun all afternoon, so it is a fairly squinty walk.

Over the first series of hills, those being Peak Hill and Higher Peak, and then down into Ladrum Bay with its interesting stacks and lovely clear water, we encounter a couple of very young looking children apparently skinning up behind the hedge at the caravan park. They look round rather guiltily and scuttle back to the death slide to smoke their spliff.

Ignoring the ice-cream shop in the hope of getting one at Budleigh we move on and past the abundant sloes growing in the hedges along the cliff edge. The hedges have all been recently flailed, destroying many of the lower fruits and making the rest hard to gather, though this still appears a popular spot for families out picking.

We meet a man who has been walking round the entire coast of Britain along the coastal path. He left Brighton heading eastwards and we meet him when he is on the last couple of hundred miles or so. It had taken him about three months which is pretty good going by my reckoning.

Along past the world war two spotter station situated at the lonely location of Brandy Point which would be a nice place to sit out a war, I should think. In earlier times this was used to look out for smugglers, of which there has always been plenty along this coast what with its isolated bays and beaches.

On past freshly ploughed fields and crops of corn growing up to the cliff edges the walker gets right to the beach at Budleigh only to find a river in the way, so a detour inland and up the river is needed to find a bridge to cross. This is not really a problem as the river is so pretty that it is good to see a bit more of it and it does have a lot of interesting birdlife, such as Heron, an Egret and some that might have been Canada Geese.

Finally we arrive in Budleigh Salterton, home of the young Walter Raleigh who isn't around at the moment, and with slightly achy feet we manage to find some fantastic and much needed ice-creams and sorbets. Yum yum!