Wonwell to Westcombe beach

Having parked our car at the pretty village of Kingston we set off up a quiet road towards Wonwell.  Soon we turned off the road and walked across a couple of fields.  There was magnificent views across south Devon to Dartmoor beyond from these fields.  We then entered Furzdown Woods and went down the narrow path to Wonwell beach.  The tide was quite low so people were walking across the River Erme at this point.

Wonwell Beach

Looking up the River Erme

We then walked along the South West Coast path, which went up and down as it came to various coves.  Before long we could see across to Burgh Island and Bigbury.  And the views were beautiful.

Eventually we approached Westcombe Beach.  First we had to negotiate the zig zag path down to the beach, that was very steep and long.  We were glad to stop at the beach and eat our lunch, sheltered from the wind, with the sun beating down on us.

We were pleased that we did not have to climb up the path on the other side of the beach, which looked just as tough as the path downwards.  Instead we walked by the side of the river up the valley.  It was a muddy bridle path which led gradually upwards to Kingston and back to our car.

Little Dartmouth to Dartmouth

The weather forecast was for showers, becoming heavier, but the sky was blue so we decided to take a chance on going for a walk.  We drove towards Dartmouth from Totnes, but turned on to the A379 just before getting into the town and looked for signs to Little Dartmouth where we knew there was a NT car park.  Initially we could not find it and when we approached Stoke Fleming we knew we had missed it so we turned around and took the turning to Dartmouth Castle and then followed the direction we thought it should be in (ie right at next junction) and soon came to the car park.  We drank our coffee in the car looking down the coast with a beautiful view of Blackpool Sands and Slapton Sands.

We then headed out down a path marked to the coastal path.  To begin with there was a steepish slope down a field but and the coastal path path went up and down a lot, but the views were magnificent.

Eventually, after 2.5 miles, we came to Dartmouth Castle where we stopped for lunch.  Revived we decided to walk a further mile into Dartmouth.  It was regatta week and we anticipated there would be a lot of activity on the water, but there was just the usual sort of traffic.

After browsing round a couple of bookshops we headed back.  Just after the Castle we took the bridle path rather than the coastal path.  Initially there was a long hill upwards, but once at the top is was fairly flat all the way back to the car.  The car to Dartmouth Castle along the coastal path was 2.5 miles while the return journey was 1 mile.  However, the return journey was mainly on paths between hedges so not so pretty, but not so tiring.

It had been a lovely walk and we had only had one shower and that one only lasted a few minutes and we hardly got wet at all.

Whitsand Bay Part 1

We only had the afternoon to walk, but the weather was too good to miss the opportunity to get out in the fresh air.  With only a short amount of time we chose to walk near to Plymouth and drove to the far end of Whitsand Bay.  We parked in the small car park near Wiggle and took the SW Coast Path westward.  We were linking up with the walk we had done a couple of weeks ago around Rame Head.

The path gradually went down the cliffs and then up.  Then it was down then up again and again.  Not an easy walk although the paths were not too bad.  At no time did we go all the way down to the beach but the climb up seemed long.  The view was excellent, but did not change significantly as we walked along.

We eventually came up to the road by the Cliff Top View cafe and we were glad to stop there for a cup of tea.  Although we had only done a small portion of the path around Whitsand Bay we decided to finish there.  We walked back along the road rather than the up and down coastal path and it only took us 20 minutes to return to our car, whereas we had taken 40 minutes on the outward journey!

Not a walk that we would repeat.