Wembury

I did a beautiful long walk using the South West Coast Path from Wembury to Plymouth. There is a gorgeously located church in Wembury, overlooking the beach, where there is also an old mill. In the graveyard I was moved by a stone and plaque commemorating a Jeremiah Siyabi of the South African Native Labour Corps who died in 1918 during the war effort. The inscription read ‘far from his homeland, now here at home. A Son of Wembury. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfricka’. The latter refers to a Christian hymn, Lord Bless Africa, composed by a South African clergyman.

The walk rounded various rocky headlands and skirted various beaches, through coastal meadows restored by the National Trust, above forts constructed to protect the port of Plymouth and around other military installations built as part of wartime coastal defences. People gambolled on the beaches with dogs and children and in between dodging mud slicks I walked close enough to a beautiful robin to see its big heaving round breast.

The Plymouth area’s collection of inlets, rivers, peninsulas, estuaries and other coastal paraphernalia will turn a 5-mile walk into a 10-mile walk. Therefore it was a very scenic but very long walk.