After an enjoyable evening with Annie and Gary at our Croyde holiday cottage we all motor round to Appledore for breakfast at John’s café. I purchase another slap of John’s squidgy home-made flapjack – I’m going to miss it.  After a mooch around the gift shops and lanes we drive back to Barnstable train station.

We use our nose and gut feeling, rather than the confusing signposts, to weave our way over the River Taw to the coast path along the river to Braunton.  Looking back the clouds are now parting over the medieval “Barnstable Long Bridge” and the derelict Oliver buildings, which are soon to become “apartments, duplexes and retail space”.

We pass the delightful colonnaded Queen Anne’s Walk, once a merchants’ meeting place, is now a café.  The heritage trail continues as we walk right alongside Barnstable Town station which saw its last train run pass in 1970 and is now a school.

Just ten minutes from crossing the bridge and we are out in open countryside following the tarmacked Tarka trail along the estuary with quite a few weekend dog walkers and cyclists. The tide, now flowing out, reveals an expanse of sand.  For a while we worry about sun exposure (the forecast was overcast) but the clouds soon return.

With four of us walking alongside each other engrossed in chit-chat we are constantly disturbed by a squeal of brakes or tinkle of bell for the cyclists to pass. The trail soon converges with the main road to Croyde and an opening appears in the hedge to reveal a pub.  With no willpower we nip in for a quick drink in the bustling pubs beer garden and admire the incredible view of the estuary from Heanton Court’s upstairs windows.

Refreshed from our break we pass more abandoned, and maybe not abandoned, boats littering the estuary then we abruptly find ourselves at a road junction surrounded by a housing development. I’m drawn to an impressive avenue of mature Monterey pine trees which it turns out to lead to the Royal Marines barracks Chivenor.

Although disappointed to have walked so many miles over the last two days and not seen the sea, I’m fascinated by the goings on in the barracks – huge redbrick buildings, camouflage vehicles, assault courses, a windsock all protected behind wire fence topped with coils of barbed wire and copious security cameras.

More cyclists and dog walkers pass and a very chatty lady in a whizzy covered-in red, mobility scooter. As the barracks end, we pass a couple of homes boasting old railway signals in their gardens then a gate across the pathway and we are in the outskirts of Braunton. Perfect for a visit to the gift shops.