Self guided hiking vacations organised
by Westcountry Walking Holidays - a family
run business.
Please contact us for more details of the guided and self-guided, pack-free
walking / hiking holidays and short breaks described in this web site.
Westcountry
Walking Holidays Our walking tours cover some of the best of UK's
scenery with grand cliffs and seascapes, rugged moorland and picturesque villages.
The
UK Coast Path, from Minehead in Somerset to Poole in Dorset,
(at 630 miles, the longest walking trail in UK), offers endless walking holiday
opportunities and choices.
The S.W.C.P.
begins on the sea front at Minehead, climbing up onto rugged Exmoor with its
purple terrain and high coastal cliffs, passing the tiny Culbone Church, with
spectacular cliff and coastal scenery all the way to the highest point at Lynton,
then descending to softer terrain from Combe Martin with Sandy Bays tiny coves
and rocky headlands, the long sandy beaches at Woolacombe and Braunton. Round
The Taw/Torridge Estuary skirting the Market Town of Barnstaple and the port
of Bideford. The old shipbuilding town of Appledore with its narrow streets
and the long sandy beach at Westward Ho! The path rounds Bideford Bay on the
edge of fields and scrub oak woods littered with wild flowers, to the old fishing
village of Bucks Mills and Clovelly with its 17th century harbour and steep
cobbled street. On through wooded cliff tops round Hartland Point to Hartland
Quay.
Books
R.D. Blackmoors 'Lorna Doone'
Henry Williamson 'Tarka The Otter'
Charles Kingsley 'The Water Babies' and
'Westward Ho!'
Charles Dickens 'Message from the Sea'
Railway Station - Barnstaple Airport - Exeter
Cornwall
Atlantic Coast
The lush
green landscape of North Devon is replaced by rugged headlands exposing amazing
distorted rock strata and secret sandy coves on Cornwall's Atlantic Coast. The
trees found here are usually in sheltered valleys protected from the winter
westerly winds between the cliff top headlands. Delightful fishing villages,
Boscastle with its tiny harbour, Port Issac and Padstow. The mysterious legend
of Port Quin. Rocky inlets at Crackington Haven and Trebarwith Strand. Tintagel,
with its castle and the legend of King Arthur. Coves with evocative names like
'Hell's Mouth' 'Porth Joke' and 'Deadmans Cove.'
Books
Ronald Duncan's 'One Man is an Island'
Railway Stations - Barnstaple and Bodmin Airport - Exeter
Cornwall's
Lands End and Lizard Peninsulas
Books
Derrick Tangy 'The Minack Chronicles'
Winston Graham 'Poldark'
Daphne Du Maurier's 'Jamaca Inn'
Railway Stations - St Ives, Penzance, Falmouth.
St Ives
a haven for artist's, attributed to the quality of it's light, is the gateway
to the Lands End Peninsula with its unspoilt heather covered moors, rugged granite
cliffs and the winding houses and chimneys, relic's left from a bygone age of
tin mining. Stunning views from headlands at, Zennor, Pendeen, Cape Cornwall,
Land's End, Gwennap, Tater-Due and Carn-Du.
Magical Coves at Sennon and Lamorna. The Minack open air Theatre perched high
on the cliff edge at Porthcurno. Mousehole is a very picturesque little fishing
village. St Michaels Mount reached by boat, from Marazion at high water and
by causeway at low water.
The Lizard coast is littered with coves such as Kynance and Church Cove, where
the church is actually on the beach! Thatched cottages set around coves at Mullion
and Cadgwith.
The Helford River creeks reach inland to Gweek and Constantine. The interesting
sea port of Falmouth.
