Clovelly is a small private village just 24km away, but with an elevation gain of 1,000m—reasonably tougher walk on paper. I had to make a trip to the local Tesco since there were no villages on the way. I found some nuts and a strawberry yogurt, but no vegan sandwiches en route to the fishing village.
Approximately after an hour of walking with no real people around, I was delighted to see a man in his wishful forties taking rest in an ideal spot, enjoying the day. I said, "Nice weather," hoping he would continue the conversation. I had read 'Watching the English' almost 80%. I paused because I feared I might actually become British in reality and not just on my passport. My grammar teacher would disagree, though, claiming my tongue is pure "Made in India." But this walker understood my accent perfectly well. He explained he was just doing the section to Clovelly, methodically ticking off 60% of the entire circuit. He asked just enough questions about my start and end points before signing off with a "See you later." It was precisely two minutes of discussion for a first meeting—leaving me with a feeling of knowing the person intimately well, yet remaining a complete stranger. Somehow, I knew he would start within two minutes, maintaining a strict 20-meter distance and talking asynchronously. I was right. He did, and I knew he would take another break in exactly an hour. I saw a high-probability fantasy of us sharing a beer at the end in Clovelly. There was small chance he might refuse though, because he had a small journey by car.
As I started descending the cliff toward the deep, red-earthed valley of Peppercombe, I spotted a guy a few meters ahead standing dead center in the path, looking as if he was peeing. I told myself my cheap specs were deceiving me. But as I passed, the evidence stared right in my eye. I genuinely wanted to understand the psychology that prevents a person from moving two feet into the bushes, so I started with the weather story. He didn't care about the weather; he turned out to be Dutch. Much of their land is below sea level; naturally, they don't know how to operate well on cliffs. In addition, he had severe knee pain and had been separated from his herd, so he didn't have much time to walk those two additional feet. Still, he felt the guilt, instantly launching into stories of his visit to India and how beautiful the country was, clearly trying to win me over. I gave in willingly—stories move me—and spent a little time with the rest of his flock further down; they were on a six-day hike attempting 120km.
Within a few meters, I met another English lady in her forties walking upward. Suddenly, a cold realization hit me: there was a high probability she would see the evidence in the middle of the path and involuntarily think, “Indians.” It would be far too difficult to steer a mid-hike conversation into a debate on European geography to clear my name. So, I did what any logical, data-driven person would do. I stepped decisively into the bushes and started urinating myself in a responsible way. It was the only way to carry the honor of my birth country.
I was climbing another cliff when I met another British couple resting and taking photos—the perfect spot to praise the weather. The lady was quite warm, recounting how slippery the path had been during their last hike, making her fall twice. They were also tackling the trail in bits and pieces, having covered 60% of it so far. The husband was tracking their progress using OS Maps and eagerly explained how I could use it more efficiently to control my pace. Apparently, his overly cautious wife had throttled the pacing to 1.5 mph from 2.5mph. Because I lingered too long in conversation, Solo-man managed to overtake me. He dryly remarked, "We are having a party," and moved on without joining it. I would have gladly spent more time chatting, but I realized my excessive extracurricular activities were costing me my only chance of having a beer.
I restarted my walk with a necessary two-minute gap and began reviewing my blog points. To my absolute horror, I realized my black-market phone had completely wiped all my earlier notes. Panic struck. Data loss on this scale is a Sev 1 emergency. This phone possessed its own dark soul that simply didn't match mine; I could never understand it, despite us being together for two years. I cursed the previous unknown owners for its inhumane upbringing. When I pulled it out, it was already dialing the emergency services. It had been doing this routinely throughout the hike, and I could only assume it was simply bored of not talking to anyone. It was miserable having to explain to the 999 operators that it was just an accidental call, not a real accident. My official work phone never caused this kind of drama. To mitigate the crisis, I fired up the official phone and discovered a "split-brain" network issue had accidentally preserved a partial, older backup. I took a quick snapshot of the data and pushed forward.
I had no time to waste if I wanted to catch up with Solo-man. He was fast, efficient, and deeply focused. To close the gap, I had to actively up my game by running the flats, praying the physical investment would pay off at the finish line. I reached the crest of another cliff and found Solo-man waiting and resting. It had been a little less than an hour since his last stop. It felt as though he had read my mind; he graciously stepped aside to let me pass, remarking, "You are fast and in a hurry." Realizing he had two minutes to spare, we began swapping details about our journeys. He turned out to be a former football player who had retired after a severe knee injury—hence his self-proclaimed "slow" pace. I shared my blister saga, and our conversation naturally drifted to family; he spoke of his six-year-old son, and I told him about my thirteen-year-old twins. It was an exceptionally pleasant conversation, but I could practically hear his internal timer ringing. I sensed he wouldn’t mind extending the chat for a few more minutes, but I didn't want to disrupt the internal harmony. I said, "See you later," and moved on.
Solo-man reminded me of Abhi-man, ABC’s brother, my junior turned neighbor. My upbringing was rooted in the rigid, analytical culture of KREC, firm Carnatic Music rules, like a joke needed logically provable punchline. But my real world ran on MIT energy, Hindustani style, everyone wrote their own version of rule. And “introvert” simply wasn’t in the dictionary. Finding another person who operated on KREC frequency felt like an unexpected homecoming.
We spoke the exact same language, without speaking. Unlike me, Abhi-man stuck to his nature, CET 2nd rank gave him confidence. Achieved enlightenment early and kept the world at a safe, deliberate distance. I, on the other hand needed validations, allowed myself to be heavily influenced, viewing my own introversion as a disease needed to be cured. I was making progress,thought I won’t be last man in the race. But to my surprise, Ashwini quickly awarded him the 'best husband' award. I appealed, said we should consult his wife. She overruled, citing five years of seniority. She was completely right on all counts, he was never bored of doing all the household chores. I was trying, but never met the bar—Ashwini has been a quality analyst for 20 years!
Climbing further, I met another lovely couple from Poole, where this trail ends. They accidentally started there and continued for twelve years and were almost finished. They were sad to have recently lost their dog, but noted the poor animal would have struggled on the brutal Tintagel cliffs I was planning for Day 8. Their final day was scheduled as a hike on Lundy Island—a place I had seen mentioned multiple times on signposts, but hadn't realized was part of the official trail. While I was talking to them, Solo-man naturally overtook me. True to form, I cut the conversation precisely at the two-minute mark and followed.
After a few more minutes of silent walking, I began descending toward the giant pebble beach of Bucks Mills, a historic pocket famous for its old stone artist cabins. I expected Solo-man to be resting out there. Walking further toward the old lime kilns, I finally spotted him sitting in a completely undisturbed place, in a perfectly tranquil state. Realizing he didn't want to be disturbed, I kept my distance and shortened my own break to preserve his peace. Another solid stretch of walking, I found a nice natural wooden bench—an ideal spot to finally eat my lunch of nuts and strawberry yogurt. I swear I bought it thinking strawberry is vegan, missing yogurt was a genuine mistake. I have learned to be kind to fellow hikers. I calculated it was precisely time for Solo-man to arrive and take his rest at this exact spot. I knew instinctively that he wouldn't expect me to still be hovering there; this type of protocol is practically embedded in our biology.
Being data driven, I knew Abhi-man’s train schedule. But it wasn't easy to spot him, which was unusual as it breaks the consistency protocol. Once I accidentally ran into him in an unexpected coach; he didn't notice me, even though I joined his Udemy course. I curtailed my inner voice to change the coach, summoned all the courage pausing the online course. He was pleasantly surprised, and we talked, though both consciously acknowledging the unhappiness of Udemy course progress. It’s not that we don’t like talking; it’s just that the interaction needs to follow certain well-defined protocols. Only above intelligent people understand it.
True to my calculations, Solo-man did arrive at the wooden bench just as I was leaving.
The final approach to Clovelly took me onto Hobby Drive, a beautiful winding track through the trees originally built in the 19th century as a scenic carriage route. The path began turning inward and heading mostly downhill, and I arrived at the village well before 4:00 PM. My B&B was located about thirty minutes outside the village up on the hill. My host, Becky, had already suggested that I should have dinner before coming up, she had her own plans for dinner. Vehicles are completely banned on Clovelly's famously steep, vertical cobblestones, and I watched a local methodically hauling crates down on a heavy wooden sledge, reminding me of Stone Age. I managed to track down a customized vegan salad in the fishing village, they looked at me like new species of fish.
As I was exploring the small fishing harbor, I ran into the party couple again. I struck up a conversation with the lady while her husband was away grabbing drinks. The discussion quickly grew interesting, so I pulled up a chair, and her husband joined us upon his return. It was then that I realized my cultural mistake: I hadn’t offered to buy the first round. Thinking it was too late to buy one for self, I suppressed my burning desires and just kept talking.
As it turned out, the husband had completed the Kilimanjaro trek a few years back and had thoroughly enjoyed it. They also mentioned they owned a twelve-acre property in the New Forest and warmly invited me to visit, noting that their horse was currently free since their daughter was away at college. The husband dryly observed that the horse had been worth every penny of the expense because it successfully kept their daughter away from boys, adding that it might help me with my twins as well.
Within a few minutes, Solo-man spotted us and I echoed his earlier line: "We are really having a party now." I immediately offered to buy him a beer. But guess what, my earlier suspicion proved correct—he declined because he had to drive later. Knowing I can’t change his decision, I accepted his counter-proposal to have a tea instead. Since I had plenty of company, I could comfortably enjoy my own beer with the couple. Their bus wasn’t arriving until 6:00 PM, giving us an optimal window for data exchange.
During the conversation, I confessed to them that I had been thoroughly destroying the pronunciation of Bude village, its called "Byood”. Solo-man smiled and admitted he had noticed, but found my pronunciation quite interesting. I only wished my grammar teachers were so kind! To my delight, the couple bought me another pint, turning the afternoon into a massive success. Solo-man then shared stories of his travels to Bodh Gaya, revealing a deeply spiritual side to his personality that I hadn't anticipated. We could have spent hours talking, but our allocated time eventually ran out. I headed back toward my B&B while they walked to their bus stop.
Becky was highly organized and possessed zero extra time to spare. She mentioned she had to head out to the farm, so I politely reminded her about her own dinner plans. She looked momentarily confused by my tracking of her schedule, but still efficiently showed me to my room.
After a warm bath I fell into deep sleep, triggering an extraordinary dream of Inception standards. In the dream, I was telling my friends a story about me visiting "Sobhi-man" on my way near a river, resting on a wooden bench, without a beedi. My brain had cross-compiled two of them into a single entity, but one cannot question the source code of dreams. I asked him, "Why are you wasting your time like this, simply resting?"
Immediately, Ashwini interrupted me, declaring, "Stop, everyone already knows this story." I was about to argue saying it’s different, but my internal alarm kicked in. Recognizing a definitive system override, I realized it was time to stop right there.
