Monday 4 June 2012

East Soar to Overbecks


Today was a Bank Holiday and an ideal day for walking - cloudy, warm, and not windy.  We drove to the National Trust car park just past East Soar village and walked down to the coastal path.  To begin with we started to walk towards Soar Mill Cove as this was as far as we walked when we were parked at Bolberry Down.  It was further than we thought and when the path started to go downhill we turned around.

Looking towards Soar Mill Cove

We then started to do the walk along the SW Coastal Path we intended that we had downloaded from http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/servlet/pdf/1/478925/Trail/Walking/Bolt_Head_walk.pdf.

To begin with the path was quite flat although there was a steep path up and down at Starehole Cove.   The walk was made even prettier by the foxgloves along the way.
 There were lots of paths around the area.  We kept to the SouthWest Coast Path although did not go right out to the end of Bolt Head. At this point we may have missed the path we were meant to be walking along, but we continued in the right direction, but maybe a little inland.

As we got nearer the end of the walk we had lovely views up the River to Salcombe



Before long we reached the National Trust property, Overbecks.  We should have walked past the outside of it and had to walk back to the entrance on the other side, but we came down the path by the side of the entrance, so we must have gone wrong somewhere!  The gardens were looking lovely with lots of unusual plants.




On the walk back to the car we had to walk through Tor Woods.  Leaving Overbecks we saw a signpost for this so we followed this path.  But in fact it did not lead us through the woods but at the side.  This meant we cut out a portion of the walk so we will have to redo this another time.  But it made the walk back to the car even quicker and it was a good flat path all the way from the edge of the woods.

Stoke Beach to Keaton Cove


A couple of weeks ago we walked from Mothercombe to Keaton Cove.  This meant we just had to walk from Stoke Beach to Keaton Cove to completely walk along the South West Coast Path from Plymouth to Soar Mill Cove.  So this is what we decided to do last Thursday (31May) .

The coast was looking lovely and there were occasional foxgloves out brightening the edges of the path.


To begin with the path was fairly flat and wide and good, but then there was a very steep drop down.  We decided instead of tackling this part of the path we went inland and walked along a path beside the road and then the road before coming back to the path after avoiding the up and down of the path.  This made the walk much easier.

Before long we reached the stile where we had stopped last time, so after having a snack we turned round and headed back.