We have also taken luggage transfer for this one day, so no heavy rucksack to carry. Instead, we will carry light day packs with waterproofs (thunder storms forecast), water and rations. There is an opportunity to go off the path inland for refreshments at Morwenstow (there is little else between start and finish) but we are not minded to stop and will likely plough on. The plan is to go for it at pace for the first ten miles, have a break and then meander the second part.
If nothing else, today should be an interesting day.
Weatherwise it does not look so good. On our way back from dinner last night it was raining and it stayed on for most of the night. More rain is forecast for today but, whatever presents itself we will walk. As we set off, we had blue skies.
However, setting off this morning with only an unbelievably light day pack it felt, I must admit, absolutely wonderful. Despite the guilt we felt at taking luggage transfer for a day, we did enjoy the capacity to hop, skip and jump our way along the path. It did confuse us for a time and we had the odd occasion of patting pockets, touching necks and heads etc., as we dealt with the feeling of having left something behind. But once we were used to it, there was a great freedom in not carrying the heavy rucksack.
Despite the blue skies, or maybe because of them, it was distinctly chilly when we started and as we walked a light sea mist set in. Still it was not thick enough to marr the views which were lovely in all directions. Leaving Bude there are a couple of gentle rises and falls as you move on to Maer Downs to then drop down to Northcott Mouth and on up Bucket Hill on to the hilltop heading for the drop down again to Duckpool and the Coombe Valley. The walking is good here on a worn, grassy, stony path with gentle rise and fall to the hillside.
Like towering peaks of dark-blue clouds,
Like splendid edifices are these rocks,
Where the birds' sweet voices fill the air,
These rocky heights delight my heart.
With glades refreshed by (cooling) rain,
Resounding with the calls of crested birds,
The cliffs resorted to by seers,
These rocky heights delight my heart.
At Coombe Valley you can still see what a beautiful aspect it must have had before the car park was built. It is such a green and fulsome place and I was tempted to walk up the valley to see what further delights it held. Perhaps another day!
From here, it is a short distance along the aptly named Vicarage Cliff, to the cut off for Morwenstow where there is the option of going in to the village for lunch at the cafe, but we had decided against that, opting instead to carry lunch which we intended to enjoy later in the splendid isoaltion and seclusion of poet Ronald Duncan's hut.
We walked sedately and without hurry or scurry along Henna, Yeolmouth and Cornakey Cliffs, heading for the writer's hut just after and above Marsland Mouth. From Marsland Cliff we had a great view down and through the lovely little sea arch, The Devil's Hole, located on yet another Gull Rock. Looking closer at Gull Rock, you can see very clearly the folds in the rock from some tumultous time in Cornwall's geological past.
We were coming to the end of our time in Cornwall, with the border between it and North Devon lying just in front of us at the bottom of Marsland Cliff , Marsland Water separating the two counties.
With its location right on the cliff edge, it is a place given to silence and solitude and we enjoyed sitting there reading the examples of his work and generally taking in the 'zeitgeist' of the hut and its surrounds. Sitting outside on the bench, looking over to Marsland Mouth and the Gull Rock beyond, it is not hard to find peace and quiet in your heart and easy to understand why a man who wrote about nature, would feel so drawn here. If you have never heard of the man or read any of his work, it really is worth a look, if only for the sense of peace it can bring.
From the grasslands, we dropped down to the stepping-stone crossing at Welcome Mouth where, surprise, surprise, we let the child out to play and enjoyed crossing over them two or three times. It was busy by the river and we didn't linger too long, preferring to move on and try and finish the journey in good time, certainly before the rains came. Afterwards, we began the climb to the top of The Hermitage, then down and across Knap Head. From the top of Hermitage we had views back along the coast to Gull Rock and beyond to Westcott Wattle. As we had climbed the weather had started to set in and there was the beginnings of fine grey mist over land and sea.
If you are interested in the processes involved in the creation of the geology at Hartland, the folks at the Geological Society provide a useful summary here.
I remember being struck by the views on the cliffs just outside Easington Colliery in the North East where miracles have been wrought restoring the cliffs and beaches after the assaults of the Coal Years. I had visited there in the early 70's and, with the coal chutes riding high over the beaches, dropping coal waste in to the sea, blackening the beaches and the land above, it was like a scene from Dante's Inferno. To see it restored to something regarding its natural state was, a thing of beauty.
It seems appropriate, therefore, to let a poet have the last word. The Scots poet, Hugh MacDiarmid, in his poem in Scots, 'The Bonny Brookit Bairn', highlights how we often gaze in wonder and appreciation at the night sky but yet fail to appreciate the wonderful beauty of this earth of ours, particularly but not exclusively, after a rain. I dedicate it here to the beauty of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall.
'The Bonny Broukit Bairn' by Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve)
Mars is braw in crammasy,
Venus in a green silk goun,
The auld mune shak’s her gowden feathers,
Their starry talk’s a wheen o’ blethers,
Nane for thee a thochtie sparin’,
Earth, thou bonnie broukit bairn!
– But greet, an’ in your tears ye’ll droun
The hail clanjamfrie
Translations:
crammasy - crimson
wheen o’blethers - pack of nonsense
broukit - neglected
haill clanjamfrie - whole crowd of them