Walking in Wild and Wonderful Britain

August 12, 2021

When I'm not at my drawing board, I can often be found wandering along The Salt Path aka The South West Coastal Path, brought to life in the moving memoir by Raynor Winn.  Less than a mile from my door, I am fortunate to be able to walk along this well trodden route, which has brought so much joy to myself and many others with views over the deep blue sea. Starting at Minehead, the path climbs and drops along the rugged coastline of North Devon, before heading along the perimeter of Cornwall. One of my favourite ever walks was from along the coast path from Zennor to St Ives and back, which I enjoyed with a friend last year and survived the brutal and dramatic cliff drops down to the crashing waves ... not great on a windy day!  

As The Salt Path makes its way through the south coast of Devon, it draws me to it like a magnet and I have covered so many stretches now that I've lost count. My favourite at the moment is from the wooded Salcombe Hill down to pebble cove at Weston Mouth, with a quick skinny dip in the sea. 

 Further along in Dorset, the Golden Cap is my all time favourite. It's the highest point on the south coast of England, which I achieved this year from Charmouth on a bright, sunny April day.

The memory of walking up Snowdon one New Year's Eve still hurts thirty years on.  I ached for days after this big climb, most of which was in fog, but felt an enormous sense of achievement and hope to return one day.

My walking experience in Scotland is small, now that I live the other end of our island. Drawing the Cairngorms recently has created an itch that won't go away so hopefully sometime over the next year I'll be taking the high road, with walking boots on my feet.

Yorkshire offers a bleak and beautiful landscape to immerse yourself in as a hiker and brings back memories of walking in the north of England albeit my local stomping ground was the Derbyshire Peak District, closely followed by North Yorkshire Moors and the Yorkshire Dales.  Mile after mile walking through moorland heather or up and down dale with babbling brook, brings me so much peace and I look forward to my next walking trip up north this autumn.

So after writing this blog, I will set out into the evening's sun and onto The Salt Path one more time :-)

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