Day 1 - Minehead to Porlock - 7.5 miles

With going to bed so early, I woke up correspondingly early, at about 6am, and went to have a shower in the lovely toilet block. The sun was just rising and was beautiful, making the bay and distant hills over the channel purples, pinks and blues. I sat writing this, while Simon got up and then we put the tent down and got ready to face the first day of our challenge. We stomped down to Minehead and bought some breakfast in the Co-op. I had bacon and egg sarnies and also bought some bread and houmous and garlic sausage for a picnic lunch.

We wandered down to the beach to eat the breakfast and then wandered along to the sculpture that marks the beginning of the walk. Photos taken we set off, zig zagging steeply up through woods and overlooking the harbour. After this initial rapid height gain, the path became a much more gentle rise and rather pleasant.

Wonderful view as we leave the campsite in Minehead and set off down to buy breakfast and then set off on what will be a MAMMOTH walk!

The way ahead from our breakfast stop.. blue skies.. a good omen?	Simon...'Shall we do this thing then???'
Talk about ridiculous rucksack weight Matt!!	Lets hope I can continue to smile all the way to Poole!!
Looking down on the harbour on our steep zig zag ascent from Minehead!	Looking back through the pleasant woods as we gently climb after our initial zig zagging out of Minehead

Eventually we emerged from the woods onto the moor top, which was lovely with nice views across into Wales. We sat for a rest near the point where a path descended to the remains of Burgundy Chapel. We donned the VERY heavy sacks again, and trudged onwards across the moorland tops with beautiful purple heather and yellow gorse flowers and then into farming land, gently climbing with small round shouldered valleys disappearing down to our right, their bottoms hidden from view.

Views out over the Bristol Channel as we emerge blinking from the woodlands.	and across moorland tops with lovely heather and gorse.
One of the numerous valleys dropping into the Bristol Channel to our right.	Bossington Hill.... the end of our first days' walking will soon come into view!!

After reaching Bossington Hill we could look out over Porlock Bay with its impressive sweep of shingle ridge. Before descending steeply down a narrow valley of scree I sat and ate my lunch on a handy bench. Yum. The descent was steep and made the top of my legs wobbly with the huge extra weight I was carrying on my back! Very gradually we descended, me being very careful of my knee which I didn't want to start hurting QUITE so soon! We joined a treelined track running back from the shingle ridge to the beautiful little village of Bossington. By this time I was EXCESSIVELY weary! I think this was in part due to dehydration as I'd only bought along 2 small bottles of water. Bossington was a lovely place seemingly, though we skirted past most of it and trudged along the road to Porlock which seemed never endingly uphill. We eventually made it, found the campsite and erected the tent in double quick time so we could go in search of a pub to quench my thirst! ( We arrived at the campsite at about 1.30pm). We ended up at The Ship Inn at the West Porlock end of town for a drink and sat outside on the patio. I had both a pint of soda water and lime and a pint of lager!! Heaven!!!

We then wanted to make our way to the beach . We ended up back at the campsite and then took the lane alongside the campsite towards the salt marsh at its end. This area is an SSSI , since a storm breached the shingle ridge, and now sea water floods into the farmland behind it at every high tide. The path we'd wanted to take to reach the beach in the shortest distance possible was impassable and so we ended up walking along a path parallel to the ridge about 500 meters or so behind it heading in the direction of Porlock Weir. It was odd to see all the dead trees and hedges , dead white skeletons because of the salt water influx.

We eventually made it to Porlock Weir and had a drink overlooking the little harbour and then decided to sit in The Ship Inn (another one!), waiting for the evening menu, reading and people watching. An enjoyable evening and meal – we both had lamb chops in a nice sauce. That eaten we wandered home in a very light on and off rain shower and I was asleep at about 9pm again.

The impressive sweep of shingle ridge as we descend Bossington Hill and head towards Bossington.

The tiny harbour at Porlock Weir

Map of the day's walk:(click to enlarge)