Section 1. Minehead to Porlock Weir - Exmoor Coast Path
Distance: 9.5 miles Grade: Moderate to Strenuous - What these grades mean
Overnight stops in Minehead before you start your South West Coast Path adventure.
The South West Coast Path starts its 630 mile trail from the harbour at Minehead, quickly leaving the town to climb high above the coastline, scaling Selworthy Beacon and breaching inland Exmoor to give you spells of both coastal and moorland walking.
Leaving gentle coombes and woodland behind, you climb past the ancient remains of Burgundy Chapel with your first views across the brooding Bristol Channel to Wales.
The official alternative ‘Rugged Coast Path route’ leaves here, climbing and clinging to the cliff sides on a testing traverse down deep bracken covered ravines that drop off the end of the world into the sea below. For those with less of a head for heights, head to the interior through dense woodland, to emerge on gentle open moorland climbing up to a respectable 308 metres on Selworthy Beacon and rewarded with rare views over Exmoor.
A sharp drop back to the coast at Hulstone Point reveals the lengthy and impressive shingle and pebble bar known as the Porlock Ridge, which, having remained intact for over 8000 years, succumbed in recent times to a storm which breached the wall and turned the rich farmland into salt marsh. Now a haven for birdlife the flooding required rerouting of the South West Coast path itself, which now leads you along the new inland high tide mark.
End the day passing through the thatched and timeless National Trust Village of Bossington where a welcome tea garden breaks up the walk on into Porlock Town, one of the Somerset Coast Paths most attractive villages, and from here it’s a serene later afternoon amble back to the coast and the tranquil harbour at Porlock Weir.