HANKS TRAVEL BLOG

According to the guide, today’s section is the toughest. Couldn’t be any tougher than yesterday. Although the ascents were steeper, which meant the descents were also steeper, especially with loose large gravel under your feet. There were more ks today, and another 400 metres in total height. Fourteen hundred, and more tomorrow. In other words, the cliffs were bigger, which meant the coast line was even more stunning. Apparently, another tough stage tomorrow and more ks again. Twenty seven. Like yesterday,there was some lovely walking through meadows. However, the up and downs became frequent and harder as the day wore on,and some scary ones,where you were descending ,and no edges if you happen to slip.Randy is still nursing his dicky knee, but feels he has that under control. I left my water bottle behind, so I had to drink water from the lovely water falls that were cascading along the little creek that sometimes appeared at low levels along the path. No rain at all today. The sun came out every now and then from behind the clouds, and the wind was incredibly strong at times, especially when hiking over the tops of the cliffs. I can’t believe I got sunburnt today. The weather was probably mid 60s in Fahrenheit, so that’s probably 20 in celcius. Pleasant walking weather, apart from the gale force winds. The wind was reaching probably 50 to 60 knots I reckon, enough to throw you off balance when up high on a cliff. Any way we got there. I have lightened my pack, by taking out my waterproof shoes, my poncho and my sleeveless vest. I have a friend I met last year who lives in this region and is looking after them for me. I will pick them up another time. I think I will benefit a lot, as the lesser weight will have less impact on my knees. I’m also hoping to get in touch with my other friend. The people along this coast line are very friendly, and are only too happy to assist coast path walkers

Today after, what has become a habit now, a full English breakfast, put the pack together, and start walking. Stepped outside and bang 300 metres up that steep cobble stone street. The people here are incredibly meticulous. There are people cleaning, people painting a front fence,sanding and painting the top of the fence, absolutely amazing how proud these people are. Once you walk away from this unique village, the sun disappeared ,and rain took over. But like yesterday, it wasn’t long before sun and clouds were the order of the day. A couple from Austria in a panic were busily getting into wet weather gear as the rain was passing through. What started easy, like walking through meadows amongst the sheep and lambs, soon became difficult. Rugged rocky coastline, and gusty wind almost knocking you over didn’t make the very steep ascents and dangerous narrow descents any easier. At one point, I was reluctant to climb up a very steep cliff with steep fall offs on both sides. But you can’t go back, so you just keep going. By the time we finally reached Hartland quay, that breakfast was well and truly out of my system, and I was running on reserve. My trusty flask was empty and my legs were aching like I’d been kicked by a mule. The sad news is, we now have four kilometres walk inland to Hartland, to our accommodation, and tomorrow morning, we have to get back to restart our path walk. We walked into the Hartland quay hotel, and requested a taxi to take us to our accommodation,and the guy, without hesitation, grabbed his car keys and said  I’ll take you. Wow, how good is that? If I  had the energy, I would have kissed him. Probably lucky I didn’t, maybe we would be walking after all. When I woke from my very deep nap, Randy was already down in the bar, having a well earned drink. Straight after dinner, I was asleep in no time. The frightening thing is, tomorrow, apparently much the same, but five kilometres longer, before the path gets easier. In fact, the next stage is classed as one of the most difficult. Wish me luck.

Well, I wasn’t going to have a second monster breakfast in two days. I think Randy talked me into it. However, no problems walking it off today. After breakfast, the first port of call was the pharmacy. Randy’s left knee was swollen, and it was giving him some problems. He got a stretchy knee support brace. We then proceeded down the hill, turned left, and started walking with the sun shining. It wasn’t long before we started climbing, and it started to drizzle, although I didn’t get wet as the breeze kept me dry. Before long, we were fifty metres above sea level, and the views were stunning. But not long after, the track turned inland and was really narrow, up and down like a yoyo,and the prickles from the bushes, leaving trails of blood on my exposed arms and legs. The coast was never far away. It seemed for many kilometres,  you were either going up or down really rough terrain for a large chunk of the day, there wasn’t much  sign of civilisation, meaning no shops for food, not that I needed any. I did stop a few times to have a cuppa from my trusty flask. We did keep crossing paths with one lot of English people who were walking for a few days from the east coast. Every now and then, we would go through a gate and walk through lush meadows across farming land. Only saw a few sheep. We finally arrived at Clovelly, pronounced Clu velly, and then it was another tough 300 metres down a steep hill of small cobble stones. By now my knees had had enough. A village with beautiful quaint cottages dating back to the fourteenth century. It’s so small and steep, you cannot get a car in here. People use a sled to bring their groceries and everything to their house. Anything larger, and a donkey is used. The three hundred year old inn, where we are staying tonight, is covered in scaffold as I speak for a repaint and renovation. The youngins running the bar and restaurant come from a long line of generations. I feel really relaxed here and part of the place over the time of three pints and a glass of red plus my seafood pasta, and a cheese board, which Randy and I shared. Makes a hard day’s walking very rewarding. After dinner, we walked down to the quay and had a night cap at the Red Lion, before struggling back up the hill back to get some well earned sleep.

That’s where we’re headed today. Last night after dinner, nothing exciting, just relaxed, watched a bit of TV,and had a good night’s sleep 😴 . Started the day with a huge English breakfast,which included  two fried eggs, a sausage, bacon,mushrooms, baked beans, a hash brown, toast and tea. I’m thinking, eighteen relatively easy ks, is not going to walk this monster off, so I only ate half a hash brown. Maybe I should have said I left half a hash brown, as I did eat the rest. And that kept me going all day. Randy ate all his though. It’s difficult saying no to these monster breakfasts when they’re included in the price of the accommodation. At breakfast we met our first fellow walker, a lady of about 32 who had just finished part of the walk and was heading home to Newcastle in the north of England. When we walked out of our accommodation, Randy mentioned how good the weather was, he changed his mind by the time we reached out side as misty rain 🌧 and a stiff breeze welcomed us. I thought maybe shorts and singlet might not cut it, but I was ok. With in the first kilometre, I was feeling good. After a while, the misty rain dissolved, and walking was quite pleasant. Today, like yesterday, reasonably flat coastal path walking, until we missed a turn and finished the day walking a country road. Some times the signage is great, other times a bit sketchy. Probably my fault for not relating to the guide book more often. While resting and sitting on a park bench over looking the water drinking tea from my flask, we met another young lady walking the path from Holland. Married, she left her husband at home and was travelling in her camper van,moving it every two or three days to a new site and use public transport after walking for the day and morning back to her start point. She was much a free spirit as she smiled when I said it must be a dutch trait. Randy and I soldiered on for roughly another six ks and arrived at our water front inn before three. It was nice to relax for the rest of the day. Earlier in the day,whilst walking through Bideford, I called into the barber I saw last year for a haircut and beard trim. Ten quid is all it cost. Bideford is quite a large town and still growing, so it is hard to fathom why the post office has shut permanently. I thought dumb decisions like that were only made in Australia.

Yesterday, I bid Emily goodbye and  caught the train from Caphan Junction to Barnstaple, with a train stop at Exeter. As it turned out, Randy’s train from Heathrow, was also going to change at Exeter.,and we would join the Barnstaple train together. However, when I boarded the Barnstaple train, Randy’s train had not arrived and was running late. Apparently someone had jumped in front of the train, which delayed it. Sad, because apparently it’s not uncommon. Randy caught a later train and we then walked the 10 kilometres to our accommodation in Instow. The walk was easy and pleasant along a bitumen path meandering through wooded landscape with the river Taw on our right. Although the breeze was quite cool, I was quite comfortable in a singlet. Arriving at around 5.30 pm, we relaxed in the hotel room with a nice cup of tea before heading down stairs for dinner.

After four days of fun with Emily, it’s time to head south to Devon and catch up with my walking buddy. Thursday, Emily and I relaxed in the morning, as she had also just arrived home from Albania. Later in the day, a nice walk along the Thames and a couple of pints of Guinness, was just what the doctor ordered. Friday, we became more adventurous and rode bikes for 20 ks to Richmond and shared fish and chips in the white cross pub. Sounds more like the name of a church,bathed in 30 degree weather. Friday night we met with a couple of Emily’s friends. A pasta at an Italian restaurant, which was really nice, a pint at the Falcon, and a stand up comedy show. I,of course  opened my mouth, and became the fall guy for a lot of jokes. It was a lot of fun. Saturday, more fun at the Polynesian food festival. Lots of singing and dancing in authentic costume and great food. Sunday, I joined my daughter in church. The roof was looking a bit scary, but was still in tact by the time I left. If you’re in England on a Sunday, you have to go to a pub for a Sunday roast Sunday night, we again joined Emily’s friends and had the most delicious, humungus roast. It consisted of, roast beef,pork and chicken. Roast tatas,carrot corn,peas and gravy,and wait, there’s more,Yorkshire pudding. Washed down with a couple of pints, I’m glad we walked the 3 ks back to Emily’s hoos.

White cross inn, in the background

We won’t talk about the last fifteen or so months. However,the future is looking good. I am back in London, sharing a few days with my second daughter Emily. Next week, I’ll head back down to Bideforde, where I abandoned my journey to come home. My friend Randy from America is joining me for the first ten days. I’ll introduce him as, he’s Randy all the time, I’m Randy, some of the time, and Hank, the rest of the time lol. Should shake up a few pommy feathers. The weather here in London is awesome as I speak. Hopefully it will be like this down south. But like Melbourne in the summer, you don’t know what happens in an hour or so.I bought a one way ticket, in case I have to get home sooner than I plan to. If I get ill due to bad weather, I may consider heading to Spain, where the weather will be warmer. Or if my mission fails completely I will head home. In the meantime, I’ll rest up and enjoy sunny London.

I’ve been home probably six weeks, and so far, not much fun. I visited my doctor, who organised a cat scan and also put me on antibiotics. The result, according to the doctor,  bad news,lots of white spots on my lungs, good news no cancer. White spots!!I’m none the wiser.Doc says wait 6 months and have another scan. If there are less white spots,I’m getting better. If there are more, we’ll action plan B and look further. As I’m getting crooker and given up the antibiotics as cough syrup and beer are doing a better job,I decide to take matters into my own hands. Last Friday,I googled lung infection and found pulmonoligist is the technical name for lung specialist. I rang one in Brisbane and they had a cancellation on Monday. I coughed and spluttered my way through the weekend and caught the train to Brisbane on Monday for my much anticipated appointment with Sam Kim, a very smily,skinny 62 year old south Korean lung and respiratory doctor. He pulled up the scan on his computer and explained the white spots. There were basically two different shapes. The triangle shapes were cement dust, and the smoother ones were silica. After the browsing and explanation exercise, Sam had me blowing my guts out into a machine that measured my lung capacity. Sam was surprised with the amount my lungs had captured and  stored over 50 something years. Even though I haven’t had a cigarette for 40 years, except for the odd joint,I have only lost 20 percent of my lung capacity. He then told me he would write a report and email it to my doctor for more discussion and consultation, and that one day I would need a lung procedure,which the doctor would explain the benefits and risks involved. I’m thinking another few months of towing and frowing. No way Sam am I going to take any advice from a bloke who can only see white spots. So I told Sam, let’s do it. Two days later and after a light breakfast of a boiled egg and a piece of toast, my blood pressure tablet, tumeric tablet washed down with a glass of water and a cup of tea at 6 am this morning, I threw a tooth brush, toothpaste,a book, phone charger, and of course a spare pair of undies into my back pack. You know the essentials you need when you’re having a sleep over. Having a couple of hours to kill, I started watching a movie on SBS called Whisky Galore. The story is set in a beautiful village in Scotland. The story goes, the delivery boat with hundreds of crates of Whisky runs aground about half a mile from the loading and unloading facility, and the town folk, having run dry,plot to get to the stricken vessel to remove the precious cargo before she sinks. Unfortunately I had to venture to my neighbour’s house to get my lift to the local train station, so I don’t know if the town folk were successful. The fifty kilometre journey was interrupted by track maintenance, so the last half of the journey was completed by bus. Under cloud and intermittent rain, I walked the last three kilometres up a steep hill and lots of stairs. I arrived at St Andrews hospital,(I hope they didn’t name it after the scum bag who is still hiding behind his mother’s apron even though she has no use for it any more), on time for my admission  and 1000 questions plus plenty of paper work. After accepting me and paying my admittance fee, I was taken to my very small change room, stripped down to my undies and put on the very popular blue gown back to front. With my matching blue slippers, I was ready for the call, up to the surgery room. Killing time by reading a book on the coming Olympics in Paris, and some interesting Olympics history, I was finally summoned by the man who puts you to sleep 😴. He explained in detail what lay ahead.Sounds fine so far.But then when he got to the bit where I  wake up and I’m going to be coughing uncontrollable for a few hours and my throat is going to be that sore for a few days I won’t want to eat, because of shoving a camera down my lungs, including other instruments and fluids for cleaning, not forgetting shoving fingers down there, I’m thinking maybe this is not a good idea after all. However, with lots of confidence, tongue in cheek, this man who is watching over me while I sleep, and got 250 bucks from me to cover the gap, tells me not to worry. After loading me on to the wheely bed, the wardsman pushed me through narrow corridors, took a couple of different lifts, maybe he was lost, we finally arrived at the surgery room. I did point the cob webs and missing paint on the ceiling  to him whilst on our journey. I couldn’t believe the size of the team. The anathesist, four female nurses, one male nurse, Sam,the main man ,and me the other main man. Although I slept through it all after a jab in my arm. It was an awsome sleep. I was driving a zebra painted 4 wheel drive across an African wild life safari park amongst all the beautiful animals. Elephants, tigers,lions,zebras,in fact I was driving towards the river to check out the hippos when some mongeral decided my sleeping meter had expired and my slumber had come to an end. In my drowsy state, I heard Sam thank the team and asked one of the nurses to jot down in her notes, that a biopsy of the right middle lobe and right lower lobeof my right lung have been taken and that would be the explanation if I started coughing up blood. As my consious state improved, and opened my eyes, I also thanked the dozen eyes peering down on me. I then questioned if they forgot to do the task that was put in front of them, as my throat felt ok and I wasn’t coughing as much as I was before going into my sleeping beauty role. I was told that the numbness from the medication was yet to wear off. Damn,I thought I might be one of the lucky ones. After checking my vitals, blood pressure, pulse etc, I was taken by wheely bed back through the corridors and lifts to ward 4E bed 1. There are two beds, and I have a 60 something years old male neighbour. An hour later around 4.30 in the afternoon, I’m given a ham and cheese sanga,water, and a cup of tea. The nurses come in every hour to check my vitals, check my oxygen tank, and ask if I need pain relief. So far so good. Tomorrow, I look forward to talking to Sam and hopefully catch the train back to Donnybrook, my home town,later in the day. Who knows, I could back on the piss by Friday night watching a miracle unfold, when the bombers beat the magpies. Cheers Hank

Woke up this morning and after considering how I feel, having the doctor’s words ringing through my ears, also discussions I had with Gayle, I’ve decided I need to come home and sort out my health problem. I could possibly have scans and X-rays done here, but I think I’d rather be at home.After having more than likely, my last full cooked english breakfast, consisting, of poached eggs,mushrooms, baked beans, smoked bacon, a sausage,toast,and a cup of tea, Yummo,  I organised a bus back to London. I’ll spend a couple of days with Emily. While waiting for the bus, Gayle helped me change my flight home, leaving Heathrow on Friday night, arriving Brisbane Sunday morning. I’m not sure how I feel about it all at the moment. My head feels a bit mixed up. I’ve enjoyed the short section that I’ve achieved.I walked 120 kilometres  and  physically, I was just hitting 100 percent. The aches were gone, and didn’t need the medicianal alchohol,that one needs at night.lol.I hadn’t been having any anyway, maybe there lies the problem. I have been exposed to a lot of chemicals, including asbestos through my working life,and I need to take this seriously. Thanks for sharing my journey, and I know I can always come back. Cheers Hank. That will be me back home next week.

Got up this morning and feeling anxious about my lungs and chest. The weather looked reasonable, so I felt that was in my favour. I skipped breakfast and just had a cup of tea.I spoke with a doctor on Sunday, and he felt, if the antibiotics hadn’t fixed me, then I need to rethink my walk and seek proper medical attention. The walk today was mainly flat following the estuary, and walking along wooded paths. According to the guide book, many walkers find this section boring and catch a bus. Compared to the spectacular coastal views, I guess you could say that. However I quite enjoyed the walk. And to make it even better, I caught up with Steph, the guy I met last week. We walked and chatted for about an  hour before stopping for a bite to eat and a hot chocolate at a water side cafe. Steph decided to wander off the track to find a wild camp site for he and his dog. Steph is hoping to go all the way to Poole, but the dog is struggling after 8 or 10 miles. We said our good byes, as I’m not sure if we will catch up again. As I walked on, there was lots of old infrastructure rusting away along the river. I finally arrived at Bideforde and booked into an older bnb cottage, arriving there around 4 pm.I felt I was starting to look a bit shabby ,so for a 7 quid makeover, which included a hair cut and beard trim, I left there looking extremely more handsome than when I went in. I then headed back to my room, had a shower, and had some pasta at the local Italian restaurant washed down with a big glass of red.