October 6th 2024 - Walk Abandoned

Well, I did tell myself not to trust my weather app, but did I listen to myself, no.  It was raining when I left home but my app was saying that it was going to be much brighter in Sidmouth with any rain clearing and not retuning until mid-afternoon, huh.

On arrival in Sidmouth it was pis…..persistently raining and there was really low cloud covering all the clifftops, great!  This was not looking good.  Even if I did start my walk in the rain, which I wouldn’t have minded, as soon as I began climbing I would be in the low cloud with hardly any visibility which would not make for good filming or photography.

I decided I would park up anyway and have a walk around the town and see if the weather cleared up later as per the app.  I decided to park up on the roadside near Jacobs ladder beach where I had parked back in March for my last walk, thinking it would be free again for the winter, but oh no, it wasn’t free until the end of October.  Stupidly you could only park there for a maximum of 2 hours with no return during the following hour.  That would be of no use to me if I was to do my walk, and, and, to add insult to injury it was going to cost me four quid for those two hours! Sod that, so I headed down the road to the long stay car park only to find that was going to cost me ten quid to park, allowing for enough time for my walk. Sod that again, I thought to myself, I shall abandon my walk and bugger off and I’ll delay this walk until the end of October when parking is free.

On driving out of Sidmouth I came across a free car park that was some way from the town centre and the prom, but that didn’t matter. I would at least get some walking in by walking back into town, which I did. I had a lovely Pasty and a coffee whilst in the town then went on to the beach to do some photography.

The weather did not improve at all and by 1pm the rain got really heavy and the cliffs disappeared further from view. I walked back to my car and called it a day. At least now I know where I can park for free, even in the summer. I know I’m at tight git but with all the walks I need to do over the next few years that could lead to a very high accumulative cost in parking charges, me being only a year off being a pensioner, lol.