So, the idea today was to get an early start, hike 5 hours to Hartland Quay, have a cream tea in the Stoke Barton tearooms, and then visit Hartland Abbey and St. Nectan's Church.
Beautiful things, ideas.
First, the Red Lion hotel, in all other respects delightful and well-run, had only one server at breakfast. Second every one in the hotel decided to have breakfast at 8:30 on Sunday morning, with the result that the poor lone server was run off her feet and still woefully slow. So, instead of starting hiking at 9, we were an hour late.
Then the fresh hikers were troopers... but not quite as fit and fast as the guide book assumed... so instead of 5 hours, we took closer to 6. And so, although we were parsimonious with breaks (too much so, according to some!), we only arrived at the tea room at around 4:20... and at the Abbey at 5PM, too late to see the inside. We did see the outside though, and the church afterwards, so overall we did pretty well... and certainly as well as possible given the constraints.
The hike itself was glorious. The coast is particularly rugged and the strong West wind piled up big swells that were impressive as they struck the rocks and the cliffs. That same wind, however, was pretty constant and at times very strong -- as strong as we've seen it, but because the sun shone most of the time (scattered clouds), we weren't cold until the very end of the day. It did, however, at times turn the Lidia frog into a flying Lidia frog.
As said, the new hikers were troopers, but it was interesting to note how just one week of hiking has already made us so much fitter. When we started, we also weren't keeping up with the guide book times (most clearly on the Porlock to Lynton day), but yesterday to Clovelly we were faster than the guide book, and today even at the end of the hike we (Lidia and I) felt strong. In fact I was bounding (like a frog too, now I come to think of it :-) up the climbs for the last hour and a half. Encouraging!
The cream tea at the Stoke-Barton tearooms was the best so far -- excellent warm scones, and gluttonous amounts of clotted cream and strawberry jam. Oh, and good tea, of course. I think I may have overdone it a bit with the clotted cream... at any rate, I'm feeling cream-tead out for now :-(.
The church, St. Nectan's, has the highest steeple in Devon (125 feet) and can seat 600 people. It felt very archaic -- still with private pews in a side chapel for the lord of the manor, his family and guests, and with a beautiful 400 year old carved wooden rood screen. A nice guide to the church in English, French, and Germany, which was convenient.
The Abbey, which I am told has never been sold -- it was built by Augustinian monks in the 11thC., confiscated by Henry VIII and given to one of his knights, and since then in the same family -- was a bit of an architectural mishmash from the outside... and since we were too late to see the inside, that's the impression we are going to go away with, unfortunately.
Hartland Quay, and in fact the whole area, feels a little like it is at the end of the world... and it is at the end of Devon: tomorrow we cross into Cornwall!
