18 | TARKA TRAILING
July/August 2026
Biddeford and up the hill to the Premier Inn. Oh, and what a long and winding hill it was
up, up, and up out of the town and at least a mile beyond, so yes, we did take the wrong trail but with far finer views and the chance meeting with the Swiss couple plus Peter's close neighbour and being spared that long walk up a tiresome hill in the end it was for all the right reasons.
After an always comfortable stay at The Premier Inn a taxi ferried us back down into town and dropped us off at the yesteryear railway station with its iconic old signal box. Here we began a seven mile walk with some long and gentle inclines forward to and beyond Watergate Bridge with the line keeping close company with the wooded Torridge river valley crossing it on iron bridges affording magnificent scenic views. We paused for refreshing soft drinks at The Puffing Billy and former railway station
NIGEL HEATH SETS OFF ON THE FAMOUS TARKA TRAIL
BY NIGEL HEATH
I have often thought that one can follow the wrong trail for what in the end turn out to be all the right reasons. So, it was when after spending a most comfortable dining evening and night at The Barnstable Hotel in Barnstable my lifelong walking companion, poet and fellow journalist Peter Gibbs set out on the Tarka Trail.
Based on Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter story, the route takes the walker through 180 miles of the most beautiful and varied scenery from the spectacular North Devon coast to the splendour of both the Exmoor and Dartmoor national parks.
"We often have walkers staying here so all you have to do is to go out through the back of our carpark, turn right and follow along the road to a footpath taking you straight out to the cycle path beside the estuary," she told us. So,
Two hours later after elevenses besides
the RAF base at Chivenor the penny finally dropped because instead of tuning right we should have turned left back towards this picturesque market town overlooking the River Torridge and over the new bridge to follow the far side of the estuary But had we done so we would never have met Swiss couple Brigitte Tanner and her Partner Urs Breton over from Zurich to walk the famous South West Coast Path who happily stopped to hear the poem that Peter had just composed along the way. It was I admit a bit of a shock to realise that we would now have to about turn and walk all the way back to Barnstable, but we pushed the pace up to yomp mode and were back and over the bridge and picnicking on the far side of the estuary by 1pm.
shouldering heavy
overnight rucksacks and armed with our walking poles and map cases we hit the trail and headed down the estuary towards the open sea. The signpost said Tarka Trail and Broughton which should have alerted me because it did not say Biddeford, so off we set walking along the estuary with some spectacular views.
The views across the estuary as we began the four miles walk to the delightful estuary side village of Instow
were not nearly as good and then we became conscious of footsteps coming up behind us only to turn around and meet Owen Bishop from the North Somerset Victorian seaside town of Clevedon who lives literally just around the corner from
Peter. I simply cannot
begin
to calculate the odds of that occurring ever again.
added all those extra
to our day we decided
Having miles to
walk as far as Instow stop at The Boathouse inn for a pint and
call a
taxi to take us the final three miles
into
heritage centre on the outskirts of Torrington before continuing along a much quieter woodland section of the track with fewer cyclists whizzing by with their bike bells ringing. But now we came upon a fun series of wooden effigies of people resting on benches
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