Salcombe to Torcross – 14th September 2019
Having completed the last section from Dartmouth to Torcross, we had intended to travel today from Torcross to Salcombe. However, we decide to do this leg in reverse to fit in with the scheduled bus times.
Ideally we look to drive to Kingsbridge to catch the 09.05 bus to Salcombe, walk to Torcross and then catch the bus back to Kingsbridge. However, we make the error of allowing insufficient time to get to Kingsbridge, being delayed by all the school and works traffic blocking up the narrow country lanes. We therefore have to adjust our schedule and drive on to Salcombe, where we park at the Park and Ride. Alas the ‘Ride’ part of this stops by September, so we have to make do with a Park and Walk.
Salcombe from East Portlemouth
the ferry and algae encrusted slipway in the foreground
Salcombe I fear is one of those places that is only interested in visitors during the summer holidays. Anyone choosing to walk from the Park and Ride needs to be aware how busy, noisy and dangerous the walk is into town. The footway alongside this road disappears at the bottom, with a couple of hundred yards of road where you are considered fair-game for ‘points-scoring’ road-users.
Having passed the first test, we have to find the ferry. This is a well-kept secret, with the man delivering food to the supermarket admitting that he didn’t know there was one. Eventually we track it down and prepare to board. I smell a rat when I discover the price has doubled and it includes a tractor ride at the other end.
I ask the ferryman if this is the boat to East Portlemouth, on the other side of the Kingsbridge Estuary.
“No, this ones bound for South Sands – you need to catch yours at the Jubilee Pier, by the Ferry Inn.” He advises, pointing off down towards the seaward end of the estuary.
However, as it turns out, coming to this pier is a good move as the public toilets provide Betty with the perfect opportunity to inspect them. Having got her approval, we stroll along to the Ferry Inn and down a mysterious passageway to some steps leading down to the water.
This we assume is Jubilee Pier, but there is no sign of a boat (or a pier for that matter). Another couple join us, just as Betty takes a call from her son. No sooner does she answer it, then a small clinker-built dingy with an outboard appears as if by magic to take us across to East Portlemouth. The ferryman appears in a rush and I have to wave frantically at Betty to board.
She gets on board, negotiating the slippery steps with her phone jammed against her ear in deep conversation with her son. Somehow she doesn’t end up in the drink, electing to continue her conversation from the bows of the boat. This all takes place without any acknowledgement of what is going on around her, so deep is her commitment to mobile phone and son.
I have to interrupt her for the £3.40 in cash, since I don’t have any. Without a break in her discourse, she opens up her rucksack and gives me £4 in coins and a withering look for good measure (how do women do that? manage to process several things at once and still have room in their brains to give you ‘the look’, when we menfolk can barely do one properly). Five minutes later the boat exit is practically the reverse of the entry, with Betty one-handedly stepping out of the rocking vessel onto the algae encrusted slipway, her attention totally focused upon the story her son is sharing with her, from over 200 miles away. I wonder what he will think if she slips and all he can hear is the sound of water lapping over his submerged mother’s head and of the bubbles escaping from her mouth as she descends to Davey Jones Locker.
Somehow this scene does not play out and we end up on terra-firma on the other side of the estuary. Relieved not to be prematurely parted from my loved-one, I indicate to her that she should take a seat in the adjacent passenger shelter, which she does for a further 10 minutes until the vital information exchange with her third-born is completed.
Mill Bay beach with the perfect white houses of Salcombe across the estuary
From East Portlemouth we follow a narrow winding road to the perfect sands of Mill Bay beach. As we climb up through the woods we look into the waters of the river, which is emptying on the ebb tide. There in the beautifully blue open water we espy a mermaid, encased in black neoprene, steadily breast-stroking her way against the powerful ebb tide. Realising she is making little progress, she switches to front-crawl and visibly accelerates with easy, long, languid strokes. It must be a wonderful feeling to have the physique and perfect technique to be able to take a morning swim through the clear waters of the estuary on a sunny day such as this.
We may not have the grace of the swimmer below, but our leg muscles propel us up the side of the cliff, to where the cliff-top path takes us past the memorial stone to the 13 souls lost in the stormy seas encountered by the Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster in 1916. This poignant reminder makes for a strong counterpoint with the gentleness of the seas that our swimmer was passing through earlier.
Gorse swamped in the pink ‘spaghetti’ of the parasitic Common Dodder
At the side of the cliff-top path I notice that the gorse bushes are covered in bright red threads, as though someone had been strewing red cotton all over the plant. It is Common Dodder, a parasite on gorse. I have only seen dodder once before, 40 years ago on North Hill near Minehead, at the other end of the South West Coast Path. Looking more closely I see tiny, pale-blue flowers on the gorse, which normally has bright yellow pea-shaped flowers. These blue ones are the flowers of the dodder plant. Dodder is incapable of photosynthesising for itself, having evolved the means of taking water and mineral salts from its host. In areas of heathland gorse is seen as a pest, so it is intriguing to see nature ‘red in tooth and claw’ redressing the balance a little.
Further along, overlooking us from the top of the cliffs at Garra Rocks is a white-painted, round look-out tower, topped with a neat little thatched roof. This, like the winding cliff path, was probably once used by coast guards to spot smugglers trying to land their contraband in one of the isolated coves along this rugged coastline. As we approach Prawle Point the path suddenly gets busier, with numerous walkers following a popular local circular walk from East Prawle Village.
The Narrow path makes passing difficult, with most of the oncoming traffic appearing to be older people, who are not happy to step aside and need to be circumnavigated with care on the steep slopes.
We get to Prawle Point where there is a coast guard station. Adjacent to this is a small visitor centre, which we decide to briefly look around. It is time for lunch, but Prawle Point is exposed to the brisk winds from the East that we were previously protected from by the headland. So we elect to move on to a more sheltered site.
The discovery of the bright blue flowers of autumn squill growing beside the path diverts me from lunch. I am familiar with spring squill, but this is a new find for me.
Autumn Squill at Prawle Point
Just on from Prawle Point is a row of coastguard cottages, which I suspect are no longer used by coast guard staff and their families. My guess is that most will by now have been sold-off for holiday accommodation.
Eventually we descend to sea level, where we find a sufficiently sheltered area to eat our lunch. We are actually a few metres above sea level on a raised beach. This feature would have been formed by erosion of the wave-cut platform several thousand, if not millions of years ago, when the sea level was considerably higher. The landscape and rocks have recorded changes in sedimentation and sea level to help us interpret past environments. I wonder if the current elevation of sea level due to climate change will one day be given a name – The Fossil Fuel Transgression perhaps?
Lunch completed, we realise we need to get a move on, if we are to make the 16:05 bus from Torcross to Kingsbridge. We are now walking at a brisk 2.5 – 3 miles per hour, although most of this involves little climbing above sea level. At Start Point however, we need to climb to the top of the cliffs, from where we can see all the way up the coast across Devon as far as Dorset in the far distance. Our destination at Torcross is now tantalisingly close at 3 miles distant, with Hall Sands and Beesands placed at 1 mile intervals respectively between.
This is going to be a close-run thing, as we speed past other walkers, who must wonder what the rush is all about. I am constantly looking at my watch and checking the map and we appear to be about on-target at each of the markers of Hall Sands and Beesands.
The ruins of the southern end of Hall Sands
the northern end protected by the cliffs
Hall Sands is famous for its own maritime disaster in 1902, when removal of the beach material was approved, for the construction of Plymouth Harbour. The ignorance and arrogance of those responsible for this action left the village with no protective beach in front of it, leading to the sea’s subsequent demolition of several houses and severe damage to others. Later storm damage destroyed still more of the southern part of the village, the ruins of which are still a memorial to our lack of understanding of coastal processes. The recent erosion of the beach at Slapton Sands is also believed to be a legacy from this earlier tampering with nature. I would love to spend more time looking at the site of this classic case study, which I have used several times in my geography teaching in the past, but alas the bus timetable does not permit it.
Between Hall Sands and Beesands we have to climb the cliffs. As we do, a hang-glider hovers above us like a giant bird of prey. Just like a bird he uses the updraft caused as the wind rises off the sea and over the cliffs to give the lift he needs.
We arrive at Beesands with a mile and a half to go and just 25 minutes to make it. We are slipping behind schedule and I consider suggesting we catch a later bus, rather than rush. This however, seems like an admission of defeat, so we rocket up the last hill, between Beesands and Tor Cross. I don’t know where the energy comes from, as we stride up the 100 or so steps in the blazing afternoon heat, but we make it to Tor Cross with about 5 or 6 minutes to spare, having walked a total of 15 miles in about 6 hours.