South Devon Coastal Walk

Our day started with a 1.5 hrs drive down the motorway to join the other one step beyonders at the seafront car park of Sidmouth. Eight of us set off on our third away day, we couldn't have chosen better weather, too hot if anything. This was going to be a complete different terrain to what we were used to, so we decided to ditch the boots, for the old trainers, that turned out to be exactly the right footwear. We walked along the seafront and had an ice lolly before setting off along the public foot path. The coastal paths were clear but steep in parts, but we all know that no height, no view and the views were spectacular. We followed the path down to Ladram Bay where we had our lunch and a refreshing dip in the sea, Cliff enjoyed this dip a little better this time. After Bev and Brian kitted Pete out with mosquito net, a self inflating mat and towel. We set off back with three Sherpas in the form of Tom, Peteman and Ryan. Despite suffering from a little heat exhaustion we all managed to return to Sidmouth in one piece. Our original walk was based on an 11mile one, we were hoping to complete 6miles of it, but we only completed approximately 5miles. The weather conditions and terrain made the walk a lot more difficult than it should have been. We had a welcome drink in The Anchor Inn, then off to the chippy for fish and chips and a mug of tea. It was a fantastic day and walk, one we would all like to complete on another day.

Bickleigh Devon

A good day's walk had by all from the picturesque village of Bickleigh. The walk was about 6 miles, the footpath ran along the river Exe towards Tiverton. Starting from the bridge that the locals say inspired Paul Simon to write the song 'Bridge over troubled waters', when he stayed at the local inn. We hoped to turn the existing walk into a circular one by skirting around 'Back Wood'; after climbing up steeply in the woods in the hope of finding a path, we were forced to return to the orignal path. It was still a beautiful walk with great company. Bev only managing to fall twice, Paul once, Pete once and a near miss from Lian and Brian B. We returned to the 'Fisherman's Cot ' and had a well earned drink and carvery. We sang all our favourite Simon and Garfunkel songs in the car on the way to Macdonald's for our pudding. The Mcflurrys went down very well as we discussed what a lovely day we had and how we would love the rest of the group to experience it one day. One Step Beyond Somerset!