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What a day, what a day. In the middle of the night I woke and thought no way can I walk again tomorrow. Every part of my legs hurt. In the morning though, we decide to go for it even though it's raining and promising to continue all day.
After a huge breakfast, we take an early bus to Lynton thinking we can pick up sandwiches for lunch somewhere, but nothing is open this early except a tiny newspaper shop. We find a small loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and consider ourselves lucky.
Our goal is to hitch a ride to the Blue Ball Inn, which is where we called it quits back in 2019—the only trek we’ve ever categorized as Holy Mother of God. Having survived that wretched climb once, we held a firm new rule: we refuse to suffer the same miserable miles twice. So, we set off to find a ride. And in this little town of Lynton, we know just the person who can point us to a local taxi.
After leaving the newspaper shop with our fancy trail lunch fixings, we stop to say hello to a man we met in 2019. He runs a tiny print shop as well as the tiny local theatre, is full of fascinating local stories, and knows everyone. We explain that we’re hitching a ride to the Blue Ball Inn and Bill suggests we'd have more luck finding a ride if we go down the hill to Lynmouth. So off we set down the hill to the lower town. The descent is brutal—a 25% grade so steep it requires runaway car ramps. It's knee-breaking work. The rain is relentless, there are no sidewalks, and not a single soul stops to pick us up. Reaching the bottom, we are ready to surrender and call Andy, the local taxi legend, to bypass the next grueling ascent, but then, a stroke of trail magic: Bill appears. His appointment canceled, and he offers us a lift to the inn himself. Pure salvation. 
It’s pouring and misty, which is exactly what the weather was three years ago in this very spot. There’s no sign of the path but we head in the direction of the cliffs assuming we’ll have to hit it at some point.
Except we don’t. Finally we decide we’re a bit lost. I assume we’re heading toward the sea and should keep going but Bob says the sea is now behind us. Just as we’re ready to acknowledge that we messed up, we meet a worker who happens to know the trail well. It turns out that last February a cliff fell off into the sea and the path has been diverted—to exactly where we're standing. Bob was right about where the sea is; I would have gone on walking forever and never found it until hitting the English channel. 
We break for our fancy newspaper-shop-last-minute-desperation lunch.
Culbone church is the smallest complete parish in England. The internal length is just 35 feet. The walls are two feet thick. A burial chamber of someone important from around 1800 B.C. was found on Culbone hill. That's B.C. not A.D. There's also a stone from the Bronze Age which they believes dates from when Celtic missionaries came from Wales and Ireland to spread Christianity.
The nave is Saxon. It was re-roofed in the 15th century. A window carved from a single block of sandstone is probably more than a thousand years old and thought to be part of the original church. The seats were made in the 15th century and the font is 800 years old
We've been walking for about seven hours now and are BEAT by the time we finish. In Porlock Weir we stop for a cider while waiting for the bus up to Porlock. It's only a 20-minute walk but I am too exhausted to walk even that little bit.
Porlock is a cute little village but we're too tired to explore even though we have an hour until the next bus. It doesn't help that the restaurants don't open until 5. So all we eat are chips, a tiny pork pie, and ice cream.
Sadly, this bus is the second of three we need to take back to our B&B. It's a long trip. Luckily, the bus is an open top scenic one and we go through spectacular countryside. While on the second bus we realize that we will have to walk back up that dang 25% grade hill again. We decide to hitchhike and someone picks us up and takes us up the hill and right to the next bus stop. We eat more bread and peanut butter for dinner—sometimes that's how eating goes.Thank goodness the B&B has a gigundo breakfast in the morning. What a day, what a day, what a day.
The view from the top of the bus.
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