Final Stage of the Coleridge way. Ash Farm- Lynmouth

So today marks the end of the 56 mile Coleridge way trail from Nether Stowey in Somerset, to Lynmouth in Devon, completed in various stages with my mate Andy B, today my son Adam joined us.

Just to confirm, this trail is 51 miles long, we extended it with a few planned detours 😅🤣

The first hour and a half is used getting a car to the end point then driving back to Ash farm where we start

The fog is starting to lift on a cold November morning, hats and gloves in place and off we go heading towards culborn church, about a mile in and we seem to have dog, we didn't start with one, Andy does his responsible pet owner thing and sends to dog home, off it goes down the lane, well done mate, 😁

round the next corner and, we still have a very friendly dog following us, don't look at it someone said, that will work or not in our case.

So we now ask it to come over, his tag says Ash farm and a telephone number, Andy makes the call, the lady owner answers and then sends her hubby in his Landover to collect him, when he arrived the dog already sort of accepted this as normal, apparently it's normal and not uncommon for him to tag along on a walk, as the Landover pulls away, the dog starts to bark, this if to say thanks for my walk.

On we go over the A39 and down towards culborn it's wet under foot which slows the walking, once we reach culborn we follow the next step on our route, through a gate up a big long hill right back to the road, mistake number one, wrong way, back we go all the way down to the bottom, gritting teeth, across the road we now spot the Coleridge sign, public bridleway it read ,so we follow the road now all the way to the top of the road we have just been to, then we decide this isn't right, we've only made the same mistake again 😪😅🤣😃 back we go down the hill and probably a mile extra now, when we reach the bottom we all realise the sign points to a gate, not a road.

Back on the track now, heading to a farm in front of us, another dog, this one isn't to happy we are walking right through his farm, he escorts us with barking all the way off his land.

Now we need to get along the river, the way to it is muddy, Andy is first in, one step, two steps, and his feet have disappeared 😅 he's back feet a different colour, we try various ways around with no way passable, eventually we accept we can only go that way, now we all have wet feet.😂

This section throws a few hills at you, and the slippy surface makes it hard going.

After some effort and time we reach the river into Watersmeet, the water thrashing down the hills, the sound is loud and noticeable, the old boys are having knee trouble now, pain killers needed and taken, another mile to the national trust cafe, we have to make a pit stop for coffee, Adam goes one better with a chunk of cake as well.

Rested and two more miles to go, a couple of guys in canoe's pass us quickly down the fast flowing rapids, brave boy's indeed, one wrong desicion and ouch 😂😪.

We reach Lynmouth 13 miles in total 6 hours later, 56 miles over a few trips with Mr B, but it's been another memorable way to see the area around us, this walk hasn't disappointed us at all😁 it's just been a pleasure to enjoy it with good friends and family.

Coleridge way thank you 😁😄