Not a bad day's walking today, from Ilfracombe to Woolacombe. Some strenuous bits, lots of steep up and down but really beautiful coastline, utterly breathtaking. Some nice people - and some smug ones. But I was in a world of my own. A long, long steep (25%) walk up a nasty hill at Woolacombe to reach a campsite where I got rained on all night and intimidated by surfer dudes and dudettes. I slept in my sleeping bag INSIDE my survival bag to try to keep warm but all it achieved was a general dampness from the condensation inside the bag, which kind of went with the condensation inside the bloody tent, dripping on me all night. At one point I woke up sure the tent was leaking. I'm beginning to hate this tent. I nearly set it and the field on fire by trying to move my trangia camping stove mid-use, spilling burning meth spirit all over the place. I panicked so much that I began putting the fire out with my hands. Curiously I didn't get burned and luckily the grass was a bit wet anyway. I was worried that the fuel might reignite somehow (lightning? you never know!) so I moved my tent over as surreptitiously as I could, hoping no-one would ask me why.
That walk up to the campsite - after about an hour of backbreaking, sweaty climbing (have a mentioned that it was a 25% gradient?), during which I had responsibly stopped and pressed myself into the hedgerow every time a car went past but no-one stopped for me, and as I was only about 5 mins away, some guy stopped and offered me a ligt to the campsite (where he said he lived). Reader, I accepted it. He was old and seemed not to be a murderer but I had the pointy end of my walking sticks within striking distance of his throat. In the morning he drove past my tent and said he wanted to buy me a coffee - I'm doing well with the old men this hol!
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