We woke after a broken sleep above the rowdy pub- I’m alright with sleeping to noise, any noise as it happens- especially rowdy pubs. As a child, whenever my parents had parties it would be my Dad who would put my brother and me to bed. He made all the noise of the party seem cosy by pretending we’d left and hid in the room where all the guests coats were kept. The party would be carrying on outside the room and we had escaped, tired and ready for sleep, we had buried ourselves in the cosiest spot of all, under all the coats. As he told us this he’d be laying blanket after blanket over us, burying us under the coats and leaving us hidden, warm, cosy and often, very quickly asleep.
I have, ever since, slept anywhere perfectly soundly. I find the noise of traffic, people or construction just cosy signs of the world going on around me while I’m hidden somewhere bundled up.
So noise isn’t a problem, you know what is a problem ? The bed being totally broken and completely slanted. It was on the ground and much lower at one corner so my head was on a downward slope all night. I felt a bit groggy and stiff come morning, partly the beds fault and partly my continuous lack of stretching (throughout my life).
We made tea and grogged about the place putting things in various bags. Eric had a HUGE breakfast and went back to sleep until she realised she was desperate for a wee. Snakes chopped bananas on pancakes which we’d bought the day before and I made coffee.
We were outside and back in some pretty grim rain by 8, wondering who the hell came up with this stupid plan (me). The rain was pretty unpleasant and cold, we left town along the river and Eric pooped on some wild garlic, undoubtedly before some pesto loving local came out and picked it.
We climbed up and out of town, back on the moors as the rain eased off the wind smugly carried on battering us. We turned sharply and steeply up onto and over the top of Ugborough Beacon. We descended to the reentrant, or, ‘divot’ as Snakes has taken to calling them, before traversing Butterdon hill and Western Beacon then falling even further down and out of the weather to the town of Ivybridge.
I had it on good recommendation the Stu’s was a great place to go for good scran, though this could hardly be the case as they don’t allow tired windswept poodles to in their establishment.
Fortuitously, just across the road was ‘Freddie’s cafe’ who, despite being no bigger than a child’s suitcase, did allow dogs. When we arrived, there were three huge ones in there already, no one could move, sit down properly or order any food because of them, but they seemed like the most important people in the room so naturally we were happy to frequent.
I never eat beans on toast in my normal life, I’m not sure why as it is one of the great, beloved quintessentially British staples and I love it. Any trail in which I stumble into a friendly cafe where cheesey beans on toast is on the menu is always going to get excellent reviews. I particularly enjoyed that Freddie’s went to the trouble of tarting this inherently cheap and comforting meal up with a few carefully placed pea shoots.
From here we left Groany Mitchell to recoup as her chest was not fairing well- coming up the from the rear in the wind she sounds like a horse dying while also having tuberculosis and bronchitis and we wanted to avoid her taking involuntary floor naps. Her plan was to hang out in the cafe and taxi to the next town then finish the walk with us from there. Poor poor her (everyone say poor Groany Mitchell please).
Snake and I were let loose on 8 miles of fairly flat and meandering dingley dell trail and undulating farmland. The highlight of the trail so far came after entering a farm and being greeted by Rodney the recently orphaned goat who now thought he was a dog and refused to go back in the goat pen but instead hung out at the farm house and guarded the place.
Rodney wasn’t too impressed with the trespassing poodle and tried to head butt (little tiny baby goat head butts you understand) Eric in turn, was pretty terrified.
We carried on through this immaculate farm, past the chicken, duck and geese enclosure and on to the baby goat pen, where a huge pack of dogs stood guard as the farmer was seeing to the new arrivals, onward through cow land and then alpaca land. It was dreamy.
The next few miles were pretty quick, quite beautiful then a bit bleak before we climbed up into Yealmpton- pronounced YAAM- TUHN. Here the loveliest waitress in the loveliest cafe made me the loveliest espresso and we sat outside and ate iced buns while drinking said drinks. We met Groany here, now bored and full to the brim of hot chocolate.
We stormed the next four miles together again, across potato and barley fields and sublet tracks and lanes until we arrived at the head of Newton Creek which is a tidal arm or inlet of the river Yealm which we’d been following to this point – it all flows out into the English Channel, we branched left or south to follow it to the town of Noss Mayo. Here houses are stacked up high upon one another, its small and boaty and very picturesque. This marked the end of the moors and the beginning of our South West Coastal Path section of the trail.
We rolled right into the Ship pub where we were half an hour early for our 6pm table which overlooked the estuary. Here we gorged on pizza and beers until we were entirely satisfied. Very unsatisfyingly we still had the steepest climb of the day and a mile walk out of Nos Mayo to Worswell Barton farm.
Here we met the farmer, Phil, whom I’d stumbled upon online months ago after discovering Noss Mayo had no accommodation. I’d found a number and WhatsApp’d it to ask about two rooms and if dogs were ok to stay. Dogs, I was told were given a kennel outside. I had politely thanked him and admitted I was an overbearing dog owner, and said we’d find somewhere else as Eric was a princess and not fit for kennels. He came back saying he’d make an exception.
On arrival Phil thrust a dog bed in my face and said ‘dogs stay outside in the fucking kennel’ – ‘we do not let dogs upstairs’ (I was confused at first but realised he meant usually this is the case, but that he just wanted me to be grateful for the exception).
Upstairs he showed us to our rooms, “the girl with the poodle” (me) was to have the one room and the “other two girls” the other room, unfortunately one of those “other girls’” (Snakes) was married to the girl with the poodle and she’d be staying in that room.
Two girls in a double bed ?
This was another shocking blow to him.
Minutes later – he knocked on the door with forms to fill out for breakfast – “none of you are vegetarians or vegans are you?” I had to break the news to him that not only were these modern day dog loving lesbians in one of his room upstairs – but they were also all dirty vegetarians.
Don’t feel too sorry for him though, he got his own back when he told us the ancient building had no heating.
20 miles on the day– 879 metres up
SONDER 