Plans Afoot 2023

As you know we've moved........to Wales, and all the plans we'd made previously no longer applies.  So, it's time to make new ones.  We're still trying to save money though so that means that we need to find stuff that is either free or as cheap as possible.  I've already started making a list.

We still have our National Trust membership, which is a gift, and there are quite a few places around us where we can go and gawp at luxury we will never be able to afford and that I'm glad we don't have.  It also means that there will be a few places where we can park for free when we go walking.  Of course, there is a whole lot of historical sites that are not owned by the National Trust (some of which we saw when we were on holiday here last year) and it'll be interesting to get to explore them too.  However, as they will most likely cost money we'll need to space out our visits to them.

We're wanting to get back into wild swimming again this year and, to that end, we brought the Wild Swimming Walks book for South Wales to give us an idea of places we can go.  We're going to start local to begin with and of course there's always the sea as well which isn't too far away from us.

I've also been looking at some pre-mapped walks in the area to help get us acquainted with the area.  I've picked walks that are relatively long so that it's more of a day event and included locations like the Black Mountains as well.  Once we get use to them we can start to map out our own walks to explore the area more.  There's also some hill walks that start right outside our front door and would mean no need to drive anywhere beforehand.  I'm also trying to find some old books that contain possible walking routes (and by old I mean pre-1960s) to see if it is possible to walk them still.

And then there's the coastal paths all around Wales that would allow us to get back to the sea again.  I'll need to research this a little more but they should be very easy to follow.  Of course, it would be practically sacrilege to not be in this area of the world and not visit Pembrokeshire.  Summer is always good but some part of me would also like to experience it when the winter storms are rolling in as well.

There is a lot to explore here and it'll take us a while, but we don't want to make the same mistake we did in Devon by not properly taking the opportunity.  The biggest issue for us is that our work shifts won't always match up so we won't have as much time to do all the walks and activities we want to do.  We will also be visiting family on some of the days we have off together as well.  I'll do some exploring on my own, possibly to places I know my husband won't be too interested in like the wool museum, but it wouldn't feel right visiting all the sites without him.  Especially as his work involves him getting to look at mountains all day long, but not getting to walk up them. 

Walking and Wild Swimming: Woodcombe Sands and Ivy Cove Circular

In keeping with our plans to walk and wild swim more we decided to do one of the walks recommended in the Wild Swimming Walks: Dartmoor and South Devon book.  I won't go into a long description about the route as it's written in this book and, for once, we did actually keep to the recommended route instead of our usual getting distracted and wandering along different paths.  I will say though that this walk was really good and we will probably do it again, or at least a variation of it.  It has the perfect amount of walking (a good mix of easy and a little bit more challenging, which is exactly what you want for a Sunday walk) and swimming.

It definitely helped that we lucked out with the weather, which was clear skies, lots of dryish heat, and the right amount of cool breeze to make it bearable.  However, that is perfect weather for burning if you're not careful and one of us may have gotten a little red from it.

We were worried that as it was a Sunday during the summer holidays this route would be a little busy, but thankfully we were able to find a parking space in the village that you start and end at (East Prawle) without getting in anyone's way and the beaches we swam from were pretty quiet too with only a handful of other people.  As for these beaches (Woodcombe Sands and Ivy Cove), they were a great find as they are clearly not used very often, probably because you do have to go kind of far on foot to get to them, you can swim out quite far without having to worry about boats etc being a problem, and they had very clear waters.  Unfortunately we didn't see too much wildlife when we were snorkeling, but the visibility was still really good.

We wanted to travel quite light and so didn't take our heavy wetsuits with us instead, I just took my swimming top and went with the knowledge that I might not be able to spend too much time in the water.  It did feel very cold when we first started to walk in, but I actually got used to the temperature and was able to stay in much longer than before.  The distraction of snorkelling at Ivy Cove really helped and I floated around until I noticed the beds of my nails started to go a little blue - a pretty good indicator it's time to head back out.

Both of us have had Covid and we're both having to deal with a prolonged cough so we weren't sure how easy we would find this walk, but both of us were pleasantly surprised.  It did highlight some fitness issues we need to work on before we do any multi-day walks in the future, which is good information to know.  However, I do feel that the swimming did actually help with my cough, at least for a day, so more wild swimming can only be a good thing.  I would definitely recommend this walk if anyone is looking for a nice way to spend a few hours.  The book recommends that you take about 2 - 3 hours to do this walk, but once we had taken our time and done all the swimming and relaxing on the beach it actually took us about 4 hours.  We also followed it up with a relaxed drink at the cafe in East Prawle.  Definitely one of our favourite ways to spend our days off together so we'll definitely be doing more of it in the future. 

Walking: Sharrah Pool Circular

We made a plan to go walking and swimming whenever we had a day off together (and didn't have errands we couldn't put off) and when that day came we decided to do a short walk which included a wild swim to get us started.  This was the Sharrah pool circular walk in the Wild Swimming Walks: Dartmoor and South Devon book.  

I'm not going to go too much into the details of the route as it's already in the book, but it's a 4 miles circular walk that takes you through some ancient woodland along side the River Dart and a little bit of the open Moors.

We were a little bit lazy in the morning and so didn't get to the starting point, New bridge car park, until late morning.  Which unsurprisingly meant that the free car parking was full and as we didn't have any change on us for the other car park we decided to change our plans and drove to Holne, one of the stops on the walk, to find a parking spot there.  Normally I wouldn't park in a small village like that as I don't like taking up parking spots the residents would normally use, but as we planned on eating lunch there it felt like it would be okay.  We then started the circuit from there instead.

The start of the walk was predominantly in the woods and I'd almost forgot how nice, cool, and peaceful it is to walk through woodland.  The smell always makes me feel like the air I'm breathing is really clean, which is a nice feeling even if not necessarily true.  This part of the walk was pretty easy, though there is a bit of a hill half way along, and it felt like we'd been walking no time at all when we reached the pools.

It's been a while since I've been wild swimming and I will have to admit that getting into the cold water was a bit of a shock to the system.  I really need to increase my wild swimming so that I can get use to this again and it might also be a good idea to stop having scolding hot showers every night as well 😂.  Despite the cold at the time and the slight struggle to keep my breathing in check when swimming, it did feel really good afterwards and was worth all the discomfort.

It did take us a little bit of a while to find the path that goes straight up the hill and out of the gorge, and if you were still feeling a little bit cold after the swim the incline of this section will definitely heat you up again.  Once you've reached Bench Tor you get a good view of the gorge and some of Dartmoor, which made us wonder if we could actually do a larger loop that would include the other side of the gorge (turns out you can and we'll be trying that out in the not so distant future).  

Unfortunately you only get to walk a little bit in the open moor surrounded by coconut scented gorse before you have to walk along the road back to Holne.  It's never a good way to end a walk and I can see why the original plan has you walking through a section of woodland before you're back to the car park.  However, it did mean that we ended the walk at the Church House Inn for a lovely, and it was lovely, pub meal and a stroke of the even more lovely pub dog Guinness.

This was definitely a lovely way to start walking and wild swimming again.  The legs got a good stretch, I got a nice reminder (if I needed one) of why I love walking and wild swimming, and I got some useful information like I'm not great with cold water anymore and my legs are no longer used to walking up very steep hills - at least for now.  More practice is needed and, with that in mind, there are more walks planned.