We soon had our first views of the sea and a very prominent rock formation which drew several comments from the ladies present on what it could be. Since there were 15 women and only 4 men on the walk we bowed to their obvious knowledge in this respect. This was a most unusual situation as we are normally very evenly split As you can see from the picture it certainly is a different feature. We continued down the valley and stopped at the top of a valley looking down towards Soar Mill Cove, a popular, if a little isolated sandy cove.
	After the coffee stop we made our way down a gentle path to traverse the top of the cove beach. We were soon reminded that it was a part coastal walk with a lung testing uphill section to the top of 200 feet cliffs. It was warm and still and most of us were perspiring freely by the time we got to the top.
However it was then relatively flat for a half mile or so and we followed John obediently enough along the fairly narrow coastal path. We ramblers are quite well trained, despite what many landowners would have you believe.
	At about 12.30 we stopped for lunch with glorious sea views in front of us and the majesty of Bolt Head ahead of us. After a 45 minute break we were off again with a couple of forays into gorse before we found ourselves cutting out Bolt Head and making our way inland slightly. Some of us would have liked to bring in the Bolt Head section but John was trying to cut out too many ups and downs since the walk had been advertised as easy.
We were soon back with our sea views again though as we turned north to the top of Gara Rock at Sharp Tor to look at the very popular Salcombe Estuary in one direction and just below us, the beautiful and popular, for those with boats, Starehole Bay between us and Bolt Head.	We were getting closer to Salcombe and there were plenty of other walkers around enjoying the sunny day. A half a mile further along we were beginning our descent through woods and down to one of the popular beaches, South Beach, bounding the Salcombe estuary.
	Apparently it was the plan to have a swim here. A minor problem was the complete absence of water. It was near low tide and the water was a long way down. The enthusiasm for a swim duly evaporated and we had a half an hour afternoon coffee stop instead.
John had planned the route to avoid roads as he reminded us and as we left the beach we could soon see the benefits of avoiding roads. You can see from the picture that he was making last minute checks on the beach before the last uphill section of the walk. We had to make our way through a mini traffic jam on a very narrow road just up from the beach. However we were soon back on footpaths as we climbed our way out of Salcombe for the mile or so back up to our starting point at the car park at Marlborough, arriving just as John had planned to 4PM

Those who had wanted a swim declared their intention to go down to Hope Cove where the beach was rather more inviting. Did they know that it was a bank holiday activity weekend at Hope Cove, we didn't stop to find out and we were soon making our way the 20 miles back to Plymouth.