England Coast Path - Clevedon to Weston

Marine Lake will be transformed if a Heritage Lottery Bid is successful

With our elevensies rapidly devoured and the sky getting greyer and greyer, we reluctantly hoisted our rucksacks onto our backs and set off again.

Clevedon is home to the largest tidal pool I've ever seen. Marine Lake is located at the far end of Salthouse Bay and from certain angles it looks like a huge infinity pool with the open sea as its backdrop. The pool opened in 1929 and was very popular until the 1960s when package holidays abroad took off.

For decades, Marine Lake was neglected; then, about ten years ago, its fortunes began to change as Clevedon Town Council and other groups began to recognise its enormous potential for sailing, canoeing, open water swimming and model boat sailing. Grant-aided repairs were made in 2012, and the outcome of a £980,000 Heritage Lottery Fund bid is currently awaited.

I must admit that to my inexperienced eyes the pool looked wonderful, but apparently there is a leak in the outer wall of the lake, which means that the water level drops at low tide, making substantial parts of the lake unusable until the next high tide.

The Marine Pool with Clevedon Pier in the distance

If the bid is successful (fingers crossed) the walkways will be improved, the paddling pool refurbished and beach huts and showers added. I think it's brilliant when historic landmarks like this one are restored and brought back into use and, if Clevedon gets its grant, I'd like to return to see the transformation for myself (and perhaps take a dip).

It's a shame we didn't have time to linger in Clevedon because I would have loved to have popped in to the Corrister and White boutique cafe to say hello to Diane (we worked together for years) and treat myself to one of her delicious cup cakes.

And so we left Clevedon, steering ourselves for a long inland detour (such is the slow development of a national coast path) and, judging from the colour of the sky, an imminent soaking. We'd barely reached The Lookout when the heavens emptied; within minutes we were soaked. In half an hour, we'd gone from wandering through a charming Victorian seaside resort in glorious sunshine to staring down at a muddy inlet in torrential rain. And my poor little toe was hurting badly.

The weather changed as we walked around Clevedon Pill

We plodded on, very wet and (in my case) miserable. A cycle path across the River Yeo at Tutshill Ear is proposed and will hopefully be in place within the next few years but until it is, walkers have no choice but to head inland (no hardship on a warm, sunny day but rather less appealing in the rain).

If anyone ever tries to convince you the life of an outdoor writer is glamorous, I can assure you it's not! Not in the British climate anyway. On days like today, with my trousers clinging to my legs, my hair soaking and my toe in agony, I almost long for the relative comfort of my old office. Almost. But no matter how bad the weather, stopping was not an option - our car was back home in Wales and we weren't exactly in the middle of commuter land. We'd have to walk miles to stop walking miles so it made sense to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Returning to the coast after a long inland detour

On we trekked, our spirits sinking lower and lower. Of course, we don't suggest that anyone else walks from Portishead to Weston in one day; in his book, Harri is splitting the route into two day sections: Portishead to Clevedon and Clevedon to Weston. It's just that we needed to cover the whole walk in five days due to other commitments. It seemed a good idea at the time... when we were talking about it... in the sunshine...

We finally returned to the coast near Woodspring Priory. By now, the wind had died down and it was once again sunny.Had we not been so tired, we might have noticed the gorgeous scenery.

Coast path walking proper on the headland above Sand Bay

The grassy slopes of Middle Hope and the headland beyond are coast path walking at its best - undulating grassy paths with gorgeous views across the sea and the dry stone walls that I love.

We descended to the northern end of Sand Bay, where a ladies-only running group enjoying an evening run made me despair that I'd ever be able to move that fast again (I think I was hobbling by this point).

Sand Bay is another interesting place. It was the site of one of the earliest Pontins holiday camps, opening in 1947; during its peak, it had 300 chalets spread over 17 acres. Several changes of ownership followed and the site has once again opened under the Pontins brand in 2014, though now it is adult-only.

In the 1980s, the beach was raised to prevent flooding; as a result, it now has two levels, one at the original height near the sea and a grass-covered higher level beach adjacent to the road.

Weston Woods lifted our spirits temporarily

Earlier in the day, Harri had told me we'd be entering Weston via a lovely woodland trail running parallel to the toll road below and I was really looking forward to this final stretch of our walk through Weston Woods (the trees were planted on Weston Hill in the 1820s by the lord of the manor to create a private game reserve, however 80% were felled during World War I).

By the time we reached said trail, the sun was setting over the Bristol Channel and my limp had become a mile per hour hobble. It was great to escape man-made surfaces for a while though and my mood cheered as I enjoyed the dappled patterns created as the flame-coloured sunset broke through the trees. A century after they were razed for military purposes, the woods are once again thriving and providing worn-out walkers with an uplifting end to a very long day.

At last, we descended a stony track and emerged in Weston.

The scary causeway that separates the open sea from Weston's Marine Lake

The very last hurdle of the day (apart from finding a chip shop that was actually open!) was crossing the very-scary causeway across Weston's Marine Lake (yes, another Marine Lake which coincidentally was also created in 1929). The causeway separates the sea from the artificial lake behind and has been an important part of Weston's sea defences for over 80 years (a refurbishment programme has taken place in recent years).

I don't know if it was tiredness or the fast-dimming light, but I found the experience so terrifying that I managed to summon up my last ounce of energy to rush across at top speed. Goodness knows, I must have looked a pretty scary sight myself, hunched over with a huge backpack and a pronounced limp!

It was 9.30pm when we finally arrived at the Premier Inn which was to be our home for the night... and it wasn't a moment too soon. Twelve hours of walking is pretty tough, even in a landscape renowned for its flatness.

And we had to do it all over again tomorrow!

England Coast Path: Severn Estuary to Bridgwater Bay by Harri Roberts will be published by camau in ebook format in August 2014.

England Coast Path - Severn Estuary to Bridgwater Bay

Approaching the imaginatively-named Second Severn Bridge on the English side

Whenever we walk along the south east Wales coastline between Llantwit Major and Worm's Head, we find ourselves pondering on the way the English coastline (opposite) creates an illusion that the open sea is upriver and vice versa.

The reason is simple: the Somerset Levels (scene of such devastating flooding last winter) are so flat they barely register on the horizon, so from across the Bristol Channel it appears the ocean is endless. Of course, Wales's mountains prevent the same confusion occurring from an English standpoint (although they frequently 'disappear' in low-lying cloud).

There's something appealing about exploring a place that's felt familiar for so long, yet remains unexplored and for us, the stretch of coastline between the Severn Bridge and Minehead - more than 110 miles - certainly fell into that category.

We crossed high above the River Avon on a motorway bridge

As always, Harri had a hiking book in mind. His idea was to link up the two longest waymarked trails in the UK - Wales Coast Path (870) and South West Coast Path - creating around 1700 miles of coastal walking. We'll publish the book ourselves later this summer in various digital formats.

The England Coast Path will eventually provide 2,795 miles of continual coastal walking, but well-managed access to all of England's coastline is still several few years off so we knew we were facing a challenge.

Our proposed route would start in the middle of Chepstow and finish in Minehead... and we had just five days to walk it all (the book will split the walk into ten days).

Harri's plan was to utilise existing waymarked long-distance trails as much as possible:

• the Severn Way - between the Severn Bridge and the River Avon
• the Gordano Round - Portishead to Clevedon (we've previously walked part of this lovely route)
• the River Parrett Trail - from Bridgwater down to the coast
• the West Somerset Coast Path - from the mouth of the River Parrett to Minehead.

One of the Somerset pills that sent us heading inland

We knew there'd be gaps and that we'd have several large rivers (Avon, Ax, Parrett) and pills to navigate (taking us farther inland than we would have liked), but on the map it appeared do-able in five days.

Brean Down to Minehead is earmarked as a priority for development of the English Coast Path (Natural England) so we anticipated that this section of our route would be straightforward, even if we encountered problems elsewhere.

So how did we get on?

Well... we've walked most of the route in our allocated five days. We had no choice but to stop at Watchet as we feared missing our pre-booked train from Taunton to Newport otherwise. That leaves us with the final eight miles to Minehead yet to walk.

The beautiful Somerset coastline with Minehead in the far distance

The route itself is varied but interesting, passing through Severn Beach, Bristol, Portishead, Clevedon, Weston, Burnham-on-Sea, Bridgwater, Watchet and Minehead, as well as several smaller villages.There are rivers (large), rhynes (reens to we Welsh) and pills to circumnavigate as well as motorways to cross (the M5 twice and the M49 once). There are promenades, marinas and beaches, piers, headlands and endless stretches of beach. There is even a nuclear power station (Hinkley Point B), although the diverted footpath keeps you well clear of the actual site).

Following the (lengthy) border fence around Hinkley Point

Some sections are breathtakingly beautiful, others boast interesting rather than picturesque landscapes. Like any coastal walk, some miles are a pleasure to walk, others less so.

Later in the summer, we'll return to walk those last eight miles and then we'll publish the ebook at camau.co.uk

For more about each day's hiking, keep reading this blog.