Culmstock Beacon

Track #3 - Culmstock Beacon - 23.07km

Last year I talked about doing this route and, with no engagements bar breakfast before the 11am service at St Mary's and with my cold in abeyance, I set off shortly after 0600 for my last barefoot run in this trio, armed with android OS map, Forerunner 15 and cell-phone. My previous estimate had been 15 miles - in fact I had to make a slight detour at the end to top 14 miles. The average speed was 4.85 mph including stops, with altitude from 68m along the river to 250m at the beacon. Total duration just short of 3 hours.

Culm water meadows

Through Uffculme water meadows

I'm enjoying reading The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane who writes "Footpaths are mundane in the best sense of sustained by use, they constitute a labyrinth of liberty in a privatized world of barbed wire and gates, CCTV  cameras and 'No Trespassing' signs. It is one of the significant differences between land use in Britain and in America that this labyrinth should exist. Americans have long envied the British system of footpaths and the freedoms it offers, as I in turn envy the Scandinavian customary right of Allemansratten (`Everyman's right'). This convention - born of a region that did not pass through centuries of feudalism, and therefore has no inherited deference to a landowning class - allows a citizen to walk anywhere on uncultivated land provided that he or she cause no harm; to light fires; to sleep anywhere beyond the curtilage of a dwelling; to gather flowers, nuts and berries; and to swim in any watercourse (rights to which the newly enlightened access laws of Scotland increasingly approximate)." and later quotes Nan Shepherd who in 1945 wrote "with a burn that must be forded: once my shoes were off, I am loathe to put them on again. If there are grassy flats beside my burn, I walk on over them, rejoicing in the feel of the grass to my feet; and when the grass gives way to heather, I walk on still. Dried mud flats, sun-warmed, have a delicious touch, cushioned and smooth; so has long grass at morning, hot in the sun, but still cool and wet when the foot sinks into it, like food melting to a new flavour in the mouth." which sentiment both Robert and I heartily agree with. And so I reveled once again in running through the Culm water meadows

Culm water meadows

These meadows I had to share with a surprising number of cows. For caution's sake I slowed down so as not to frighten them and made it through without being trampled on.

Hunkin Wood to Culmstock

You can clearly see the path of the long past Culm valley railway in the map above. My track in red crosses it at the picture below where I saw the most tangible evidence of the railway. Otherwise all I saw was faint suggestions of the course in the field boundaries and vegetation.

Culm valley railway bridge

Aberdeen Angus? as I approached Culmstock

The quaint road bridge at Culmstock

Strange place to see a totem pole

Water meadows past Culmstock, destination in view

Having crossed the river, the path I follow only faintly embosses the grass

from Culmstock to the beacon

The path is definitely ascending as I reach Pitt Farm which turns out to be perhaps the dirtiest farm I have encountered. Where my path turned northwards a tractor had been deposited across the track doubtless to help channel the cows to their morning milking. I wondered what colour the milk would be: they had left a veritable river of cow-muck through which I had to pick my way. Thankfully wet grass is wonderful for washing one's feet!

I can assure you it was worse than it looks!

Rights of way are maintained so well in England

Half way up

Here be boggy ground - thankfully I had no shoes

Mission accomplished!

Views from the top

Willand is out there somewhere

Inside the beacon

Here's how it worked

Neighbouring beacons

When one has no flask of tea, no sandwich or Crunchie bar, there's not much else to do once one has taken a zillion photos to prove the feat. To lay down and rest would be disaster - I'd probably never get up again! So I started back cautiously by following the track north for while.

Riot of gorse and heather

And did plain boring minor-roads all the way home. But I did meet a horse and its rider and was able to out-run it.