Walking The Two Moors Way Coast to Coast: Wembury to Lynmouth, 117miles Days 0, 1, and 2
Two Moors: Day 0, travelling to Ivybridge
AS and I depart midafternoon on Wednesday, 27th May 2026, bound for a B&B in Ermington for me, and a shepherd’s hut in Ivybridge for AS.
In the evening, we headed out to The Ship Inn, Ugborough, only to find AS had booked Thursday, not Wednesday – a feature of this travelogue: mistakes, failures, and the like, paving the way for something better.
The ‘something better’ on this occasion was Turtley Corn Mill, Avonwick. Pulling into the car park, we were greeted by a peacock in full display. Two more peacocks and other large birds circulated amongst the guests as we sat down in the evening sunshine outside, with maybe fifty others enjoying good food and wine.
Conversation between two old duffers who’ve known each other for 37 years ebbed and flowed in accordance with a hidden rhythm developed over time, but deepened to include issues of the day, including charitable housing projects in Bristol, due simply to the extra time spent throughout the day.
Two Moors: Day 1, Wembury to Ivybridge
Official route: 26km (16.5miles) in 6 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 21.75km in 4hr 43min; elapsed time 7hr 3mins.
My B&B in Ermington, a few km short of Ivybridge, is a gorgeous detached family home with mature gardens front and back. Idyllic. I’m the sole guest. He golfs, she doesn’t. Amused me that early on in conversation, they passed to me Beryl Cook’s 30 Cakes to Eat Naked, with five nude cartoon figures eating tea and cake around an outdoor table.
AS and I are taxied to Wembury beach and set off at 9.53 on the first leg to Ivybridge, according to Strava. I walked the route two months ago, so map reading wasn’t required, though we did refer to it at times.
The forecast was 100% sun. This would have been true had it not been for one thunderstorm cloud travelling north at speed from the English Channel towards us, despite a ground-level breeze from the north. It took about an hour to reach us and dump its load. The sunshine soon dried our clothes as the storm passed by.
Lunch, at Nelli’s café in Yealmpton, nearly didn’t happen. In attempting to get out of his chair, A’s back locked. A curious sight seeing an old friend, folded over at right angles, like a book, stuck. Fortunately, he recovered quickly and straightened up, but a nasty moment.
A fellow Two Moors traveller, Damian from Leeds, coincided with us at the café. He, of the younger, stronger version of humanity, was carrying his clothes, work-related iPad and camping gear in a rucksack.
The walk across rolling countryside has many scenic spots, looking north to Dartmoor on the horizon as is the white scar of the China Clay excavations – also important for tungsten extraction.
My favourite stretch, though, as before, is the gentle descent from Hollowcombe Cross to Ermington, passing through fields of llamas on a restricted path. They are curious creatures, slightly superior one feels, contemptuous of those with shorter necks.
Evening meal at The Ship, as booked.
SAUSAGES! In THIS weather?
Across the square was a van, John Stevens Decorator and Plumber; my alter ego evidently. The meal was spoilt slightly by a bustling waitress with a fog horn for a voice – an ex-librarian? She did give us something to laugh at with her apparent shock over A’s order of sausages: ‘SAUSAGES! In THIS weather?’ she barked before turning tail and scurrying off to the kitchen.
Two Moors: Day 2, Ivybridge (Ermington) to Scorriton
Official route: 26km (16.5miles) in 6 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 25.97km in 5hr 14min; elapsed time 7hr 50mins.
Each morning I have a set of physical exercises designed to ease up neck, shoulder, back, leg muscles, and I’m reading the Psalms set in the Book of Common Prayer in the old, Authorised, Elizabethan English. If physical exercises are designed to reduce physical stiffness, the Psalms and a set of prayers are limbering-up spiritual exercises for the heart. Occasionally, a verse seems to stand out: today’s morning Psalms: 71 &72
8.04.
On my own for the rest of the expedition.
The uphill slog through Ivybridge up to Dartmoor nearly started poorly. Having reached Ivybridge from Emington, I spotted a path I thought was the continuation of the ErmePlym trail. Something made me hesitate and ask a man out walking his dog. ‘No. That’s the wrong way. I’ve walked the Two Moors, follow me and I’ll direct you to where the Dartmoor begins’. Not for the last time, someone was in the right place at the right time to keep me on the straight and narrow!
The left foot had started to complain, so I took a break just after leaving Ivybridge at the sign for Dartmoor National Park. After a short break, removing my left boot, and drinking some water, it was time to carry on.
Up onto the moor.
There was a tangible sense of leaving one normality behind and joining the sheep, lambs, Dartmoor horses and their foals, cow pats, rabbit droppings, birdsong, and the general scenery of Tors and clouds scudding across the blue sky.
The long walk across miles of moorland on the uneven Erne-Plym trail irritated my Morton’s neuroma, forcing me to stop to remove my left boot more frequently than I expected, but it was a minor hindrance really.
The little, a disused pit, broke the monotony at 647 634, then on to lunch at the foundation stones of buildings at 650 657 before heading East to a point overlooking a beautiful valley with a ribbon of blue water running east to the Avon Dam Reservoir.
Descending sharply to the clapper bridge, I crossed over and found a good place to sink my weary feet in the cold, gurgling stream: bliss.
After that, a second navigational error.
The map showed the path heading NE. I failed to check the bearing along the path I followed and quickly ended up a kilometre or so to the south of my route. But the mistake did give me excellent views of the dam at the far end of the reservoir.
Lesson number one: check direction using a compass! One I would go on to relearn a few times.
I headed north, using the compass to find the path. But failed. Or maybe I didn’t! Later that evening talking to my next host he nodded sagely and said ‘I’ve often rescued walkers from that point; there’s no path there’. Then I made an error born from a befuddled brain and took the only decent path, even though I knew it was in the wrong direction thinking, ‘it must lead somewhere from where I can make a better decision’. I reached a junction of paths and felt quite lost and disoriented.
How you judge the following depends on your faith perspective
I prayed for help.
How you judge the following depends on your faith perspective. I hadn’t met anyone since the man with the dog in Ivybridge. Now, a man with a spotless white t-shirt, carrying a substantial rucksack appeared as if from nowhere, walking towards me from one of the paths. He knew where he was on the map and therefore was able to direct me. If that’s not an answer to prayer, I don’t know what is.
From that point on I followed the Abbotts Way, a bridle path, winding its way down from the moor to the ford near Cross Furges 657 665 and on to Scorriton.
Reaching Scorriton, I was very weary and sat on a shaded bench to cool off before reaching the Tradesman’s Arms at 4pm.
A pint of Dartmoor IPA in the garden chased the blues away. Also sitting in the garden was the chef, whose recommendation of the battered chicken I followed. Normally not a fan of batter, this was a thin version and didn’t dominate the flavour of the chicken.
And a cognac at 9 to finish the day following in the tradition started last year on the Camino with PS and a minor contribution to the pub quiz running at the time.
Evening Psalms: 73,74
