River Erme

Last night I realised that the River Erme stood in my way on the path. Unlike the other estuaries this one has no ferry so you either walk around it for 7 miles on roads or, as Dora would say, you walk through it.

Well I’ve now arrived at the crossing point and I’m trying to decide what to do. It’s 12:45 and I have to wait until 3:15pm for the tide to be low enough for me to wade over. This will involve getting my feet wet. Alternatively I could take the walk but I don’t fancy that because there is no footpath so you’re walking in the road, plus it doesn’t seem as cool as wading through. The walk round would get me across slightly earlier assuming I went the right way for the whole trip – which does seem unlikely.

I think I’m going to wait and then wade over. Might be fun.

Slow day

I can’t believe how refreshed I feel after a shower and good nights sleep. I think my body needed it. I knew that I’d have to wait till late to do this crossing so I took my time to pack up my stuff this morning and managed to get some breakfast in Banthan. This is a funny place because it has a hotel and pub that get cut off from the mainland during high tide but there’s a ‘water tractor’ that pulls a trailer with wheels on sort of stilts that can move people between the land and the businesses.

The walk from Banthan to the crossing is quite tough as you climb and fall into little bays but it’s only about 6 miles and I was in good spirits and thoroughly enjoyed it. The scenery was again beautiful and I spent a lot of time looking back on where I came from. The rock formations out to sea are mesmerising. I assume they are formed because the land has eroded into the sea and then just left the solid rock. But I have no idea really. You’d want to know your way around them if you were on a boat because a lot of them would be submerged at high tides.

I was in such a good place on the walk. I even put a headphone in and listened to some music. Music in right ear, sound of sea in the left. Sometimes I don’t like the music but today it really worked for me. I was a little apprehensive when I woke up for no apparent reason, and I sensed this could be a downward spiral, so I was doing everything I could to avoid that.

I’m always quite impressed that when up high you’re waking around farmers fields where they graze cattle and sheep but often with no fence to stop them wandering off the cliff.

Later on

On my walk today I picked up some essentials because I really want to press on after a hopefully successful crossing, and I realised I’d have to wild camp again, so felt it wise to have food. I do find the wild camping a little stressful so try to make sure I’ve got everything in order so I only have to think about finding a spot. It really does have its benefits though. I’ve seen two couples today who have asked me about the ferry that I caught yesterday who had to write off yesterday because of the wind. Because they’ve got accommodation booked in advance they’ve had to miss out a section of the walk and get taxis to their next accommodation. So I suppose I’m lucky that I can be so flexible. For example today I’m just going to walk until it’s dark and then try to find somewhere to pitch. It still stresses me out though.

Back to a three pairs of socks system

One of the benefits of my tent breaking was being able to solve my sock problem by replacing the pair I lost. This is fairly boring but I’m going to cover it anyway. I have a sock cycle system. Basically, you wear one pair, the pair from the day before is drying on the side of your rucksack, and the final pair is in a dry bag staying dry to be worn the next day. Sometimes you have two pairs drying when it’s been particularly wet, like it was yesterday, but I have found it’s been a good way of always having a dry pair of socks to put on in the morning.

The crossing

So it’s 1:25pm now so hopefully not too much longer until I attempt the crossing. I might try and get across at around 3pm. A couple have just turned up and I think they plan to cross so I’ll keep an eye on them. My main concern is that I fall over and get everything wet. That would be a total disaster.

At least the weather is on my side today. It’s sunny with a bit of a breeze. I was probably a bit silly walking in the bad conditions for much of yesterday. Especially after hearing of others writing the day off. I think they did the right thing but I got away with it. The issue I had really was once the wind was strong I had nowhere to stop and couldn’t turn back because the terrain I’d already covered was probably more dangerous.