Saunton – Westward Ho!
I woke up at 2 am because I was really cold and wet. At first I thought that it started raining, but then I realized that the sky was clear and full of stars. It was enemy worse than rain – it was DEW. It was all over the tarp and the bivy, which did not have a waterproof top, so the down sleeping bag got soaking wet and useless. I realised later that had I put up the tarp over my head, IT would attract the dew instead of ME:)
I switch on my headlight and discovered that the wet tarp had attracted a number of slugs, which were all sleeping happily around me. I catapulted them off the tarp one by one and built some walls out of trekking poles and some other stuff:) I ate some food to generate more body heat, put on every piece of clothing I had and tried to go back to sleep. That worked (thank you BPL) and I grabbed another 3 hours before I woke up cold again. I spent the next hour shivering, listening to music and making some voice recordings. As soon as I saw first signs of light I quickly packed my stuff and hit the road again. The morning was once again perfect and I had no complaints:
I decided to attach the bivy and the tarp to my backpack to allow them to dry. Not a bad idea in general, but I managed to spoil it. After the first hour I took a break and noticed that the bivy was missing! I ran back about a mile and found it hanging on a fence that I climbed over earlier. I felt very relieved because that bivy sack was a critical gear item.
The rest of the morning was really boring. I walked along the river to the nearest bridge, which was in Barnstaple. I crossed the river around noon and walked back towards the coast to Instow. I got there by 3 pm and found a really cool amphibious ferry that ran across another river to Appledore. Unfortunately the next crossing was in 4 hours, so I decided to use the footbridge in Bideford to cross the other river (refer to the map above). Before leaving Instow I washed myself in the public toilets (oh yeah, I got looks from people:) and dried the sleeping bag.
The detour took two hours. I did some quick shopping in Appledore and also ate my first pastie. As I was leaving the village I discovered that my camera had some lens error and stopped working completely. That really upset me.
Soon I was walking through more sand dunes towards Westward Ho! (what a cool name!) and I stepped into it at 7 pm. I decided to do an extra mile or two to get out of the village and find a good camping spot. I found a perfect one 30 minutes later. It was a flat grassy platform right on the edge of a low cliff facing the sunset, which was it its full glory by then. I was soo mad at my camera. But then again – I saw it with my own eyes and that’s what matters.
The sky was clear again, but I have learnt my lesson from last night. I pitched the tarp in the asymmetric configuration, which I found to work best and settled with. I had a cheese noodle for dinner and some usual snacks. By the way, I slept warm and dry that night.
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South West Coast Path 2009 