A second flat day. Turned out, in the end, that days of walking on flat ground were rare on the mighty SWCP.

The third of walk of our four day trip and already best part of 26 miles done on this brief trip away. Andy and me well aware although that some walking folk do that in a day. The weather was warm but somewhat gloomy and a touch dank by early evening. I had a nostalgia-trip today back to my former life as a golfer!

Today’s route took us inland to the south of Instow and into Bideford hugging the right bank of the Torridge. We reached Bideford in even time as the walking was easy and had our coffee break sat on the quayside. We both looked back at another medieval “Long Bridge’ which we had just crossed; two done in two consecutive days. You cannot help but ponder how many humans have crossed these bridges on their way to and from the agricultural markets and the other services of the two ancient and interesting estuarine towns.

The walk out of Bideford bought us close to a lot of rather atmospheric semi-wrecks in the Torridge; most in need of some TLC. A mix of coaster, fishing boats and a few ancient “pleasure craft”. A slight air of marine melancholy pervaded. We then scampered through the comely little outpost of Cleave Quay which was manicured to within an inch of its very life and on to Appledore.

Now Appledore had a strange attraction to me. The small town was hunkered down into the end of the estuary and had a sense of being a place past its hey-day of boat building, chandlery and other associated marine activity. The houses and cottages are tightly packed, lots of high walls and some steeply sloping properties and alley-ways. The few folk we saw were hurrying from place to place. The frontage to the estuary was modest but nevertheless, quite appealing to my sensibility. I told Andy the sad story of a childhood acquaintance of mine who moved to Coalpit Heath from here and was known as the “latch-key” boy; he was a delinquent in the making it seems to me and so it passed. A physically handsome but very troubled adult formed and sadly he died way before his time. Poignantly he was known by the nickname “Chuckles”. I felt I paid some kind of respect to his sad story here and chewed a bit more thoughtfully on my lunchtime sandwiches as we overlooked this place.

Finally, onto Northam Burrows and a circuit around the rough and ready golf links of Royal North Devon GC where back in 2010 I played with Simon and he roundly thrashed me 4 and 3. However, on the 12th after a well struck if slightly leftward bound drive close to the ‘Fug” I made a sweet strike with my 6-iron and holed it from around 160 years much to the surprise of a group of fellow golfers watching me hole out from the 13th tee. On we walked through the small town itself with a strong “kiss me quick” vibe going on and a lovely row of beach huts amongst the tacky amusement park and arcade with the unsweet aroma of fried food in the air.

Today’s musical listening included a recent release by Bruce Springsteen, namely the understated and quite brilliant “Western Stars” album and the early 1970s classic by the rolling Stones, “Sticky Fingers”. However, my tune for the day has to be “Sugar Sugar”, by the confected US group The Archies - the times this was a hit were those when i knew "Chuckles".

Our parking was Instow as before (SS474313) and at the Westward Ho! car park belonging to a hero of mine Mr. Braddick a local businessman who bought Seafield House and associated car park (SS423292) which he allows FREE parking at. Superb and so different to Saunton Sands and on a raised beach with a raised cliff behind and beach huts too!

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