Our day starts rather disappointingly with a poor breakfast. Whilst noting is dreadful, it’s not cooked to my liking. I rarely complain about food, it has to be significantly wrong for me to upset the apple-cart, so I’m just grumpy for a while instead. Why won’t I complain? Several reasons - it’s embarrassing for the other person or persons, it throws the timing of the table and the remainder of the meal out of balance and if it’s a subjective opinion it’s not necessary understood by the staff.
Happily, the weather is somewhat better than forecast so we choose the shorts we packed without expectation of use. Still needing coats as rain is likely later, we head off down the mountainside towards town and south.
Our plan for today is to walk to Dartmouth starting on the coast and then heading inland at Paignton for the rest of the journey. In fact we keep on the coastal path for longer and cut across a housing estate well south of Paignton to join the road. This is a very busy route and we’re really not happy so take an unplanned diversion into Galmpton which forms the basis of a revision to our plans for later.
Rejoining the busy but narrow road a couple of miles along confirms it’s not much fun, but this section is unavoidable so we battle against oncoming traffic, often with hedges right up to the raodside it’s quite scary. Finally with just three miles left we hit a bridal path and then a quiet lane which although longer takes us tranquillity down to Kingswear, the small village directly across the Dart from Dartmouth. During all this journey the weather is variously raining, windy and sunny so the coats are on and off repeatedly!
Descending into Kingswear gives us stunning views up the river Dart, across to Dartmouth and it’s impressivelookimg college, officially known as Britannia Royal Naval Colledge, where officers are trained. Within moments of reaching the ferry ramp it appears, and we hop on to take the very short journey across. Seeing the notice on the terminal’s wall my plan forms to save us the miserable sections of road on our return.
Deciding to act now, we wander through Dartmouth until we find the main jetty, we’re looking for the Greenway ferry. Unfortunately find this isn’t running as Greenway is closed, and it looks like our new route is thwarted until Hubby spots a small vessel stencilled with Dittisham Ferry and asks if that will do? Yep I hastily answer with head in Google Maps and we get a private journey up river. Only whilst relaxing on our launch do I realise that Dittisham is on the wrong side! A quick chat with the skipper reveals that there’s another ferry we can take to get back across the Dart and continue our walk.
This third and final ferry has no timetable, one simply rings the bell which is heard across the river and the ferryman come over to fetch us. Whilst making the crossing our ferryman tells us that although Greenway is closed, we may still take a footpath up close, and so we manage to glimpse just the side elevation of Agatha’s rather impressive summer home, before resuming our walk in ernest.
As we walk we are repeatedly crossing over or under a railway that is now a tourist attraction but was originally part of the national railway network. It’s termination at Kingswear is a very picturesque building which is also the ferry terminal we used earlier. There’s even a station at Greenway which is very handy for visitors to the house. Of course, midweek in November it’s not operating even if there’s not other reasons at present to hinder life.
Soon we’re back in Galmpton and heading back to the water’s edge at Paignton and then onwards to our hotel.all in we’ve walked 21 miles but as both our Fitbit apps crashed only Apple Watch confirms this fact. By taking the revised routing we saved three miles and 500 ft of ascent, but more importantly we remain unscathed!
Time for a cuppa before we head to the spa for a much needed steam, sauna and jacuzzi and read the paper, which incidentally we’ve actually bought using the new paperless voucher for the first time ever - a small success yet a huge achievement..
Chablis for aperitif goes down very well as we deal with a mountain of emails, and in my case fix a problem of my own making where regretfully I’d locked the parents out of the class booking system for the whole day. Happily our capable Academy staff had sent the Zoom links to those affected and I soon fix it so all is happy once again.
Dinner is excellent and the belly pork one of the best I’ve ever had so no grumps this evening.
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