Day 6 - Croyd to Chivenor - 10 Miles

Today was to be a longer day but pretty much all flat walking so dosed up on the old painkillers as usual, we hobbled off for the day! We went down to the beach to rejoin the official footpath at the far end of Croyde Beach.

Looking back at Baggy Point from the far side of Croyde Beach.

The wonderful expanse of Saunton Sands stretching away to the River Taw Estuary. Behind the beach are huge numbers of sand dunes Braunton Burrows which are ministry of defence land. We decided to walk along the beach front rather than the official path behind the dunes. We had to go into the dunes at one point though to avoid pretend military goings on on the beach.. they were filming a D Day type landing there which was interesting.

Me, as we approach the far end of Saunton Sands and the River Taw Estuary.

From here on its a bit of a flat trudge inland as there is no ferry across this estuary. The nearest crossing is the old Bridge at Barnstaple... about a 20 mile detour to return back out to the coast proper! It was actually rather a pleasnt walk though, better than I'd been expecting and added to the wonderful variety of scenery we have seen along the way so far. The campsite for the night was near Chivenor RAF base from which we saw the rescue helicopter take off several times during our day.

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

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