Tue 27th April - Day 11, Stoke to Bucks Mills (15 miles)

Awoke to a cloudy day with a cold north wind, good weather for walking. It was up and down again and I could see the lighthouse at Hartland Point ahead of me.

I hadn't been going an hour when I came across an adder on the path, it was dead unfortunately, I could see no obvious injury, it certainly hadn’t been battered by a human.

At Hartland Point the coastline turned east so I was no longer walking into the wind.

The route seemed to level off now and after about 4 miles I came to a small section of trees at Windbury Point.

It is really good to walk through woodland this time of year, very colourful with bluebells, white wild garlic and yellow gorse and the wonderful scents.

At Mouth Mill is the ruins of a mill, I received a £10 donation here from 2 walkers.

At a clearing, just before coming into Clovelly, I saw a stoat run across the path in front of me.

It was still cloudy with a cold wind but there was blue sky out to sea.

Clovelly is a very popular place for tourists and I spent a leisurely 2 hours here and treated myself to a pub lunch, collecting another £5 donation.

This very small fishing village is on the side of a steep hill, cars are not allowed and wooden sledges are used to carry items up the narrow cobbled lane.

The sun came out now but I didn’t really get the benefit of it as the route followed a track through the trees, I saw my first grey squirrel of the trip.

I was going to stay at the campsite near Bucks Cross, I followed a footpath just past Bucks Mills, this was shown on the map but it was more like a stream gully, I don’t think it was used much, very overgrown with fallen trees and bramble briars.

By the time I got to Steart Farm campsite I was covered in cuts & scratches.

This was a good campsite and I got all my clothes washed & dried.

161 miles completed.