The rain finished in the early morning hours but left behind a grey, humid day. One bright spot were these bathing beauties who meet every day to swim in that tidal saltwater pool.

The Path followed the promenade out of town, along another rail>trail corridor, then out into rolling coastal hills for a couple of miles.

Soon enough I encountered mud which ended up being the theme for the rest of the day. Thick muck, thin mud, mud hiding between rocks, mud coating the wooden steps. I generally have a tendency to skid while hiking, (maybe I put too much weight on my heels?) so all this mud made for treacherous, time-consuming tiptoeing and waddling and doing the splits while avoiding the worst of the squelch, the low-hanging branches, and the grasping thorns. It was a mentally exhausting hike.

Fortunately there were wildflowers, and bluebells, and weird eerie oaks and newly fallen trees to admire and photograph and investigate and clamber over.

The last four miles of the stage went through some brilliantly green, wet fields that I happily trod, swishing the mud off my shoes. Then an hour on Hobby Drive, a cobbled road apparently constructed by prisoners of the Napoleonic Wars, before reaching Clovelly. “Where the steep, cobbled street tumbles down past gleaming white cottages to the tiny, deep-blue harbour…”