you made it happen

i want to say thank you.

thank you to everyone who's read this blog. everyone who's commented. everyone who's texted me or called me. everyone who's liked a facebook status, or photo, or left a comment. everyone who joined me, or let me join them. everyone who fed me, brought me a tea, let me use their land for camping or looked after my bag.

and on behalf of oxfam, thank you to everyone who sponsored me. from the odd change from strangers on the walk to those who have made significant donations.

without you all, it would have been incredibly difficult to complete my personal challenge of walking the whole south west coast path in one go. dare i say impossible?

so thank you, for allowing me to have what has been one of the best experiences of my life.

jin x

day 39: c'est fini

i've been wondering for a few days how i'd feel when i finish. trying to think of clever things to say. but now it comes to it all i can think is 'it's done'

and as for how i feel, i'll have to let you know.

jin x

7.5 miles today. total miles: 633.2 miles down, 0 to go.

day 38: 630 miles in 38 days?

my dad joined me again last night to walk with me to the end. last night we had one main topic of conversation: how best to avoid the worst of the rain. it was a toughie.

yesterday the forecast was saying rain starting this evening and staying heavy for tuesday morning. while that was the case we were going to ditch the camping stuff to save weight and head straight through to south haven point, just over twenty eight miles away.

it would've been tough, but ultimately doable. then the forecast changed and said rain starting earlier on monday and only cloudy on tuesday. so back to the original plan. which is what we did.

we started off with cool mist:

that looked like something out of pirates of the carribean. at least to me.

then the sun came out, which made it a formidable day: covering over twenty miles. in blazing sunshine. with very little by way of water or refreshment opportunities. and hills. big ones. lots of them.

like this:

and this:

for much of the day my legs felt like lead. i think i've been getting that 'almost there' wind down. bizarrely though, by the end of the day i felt fresher than i sometimes have after days this long. odd.

jin x

20.9 miles covered today. overall: 625.7 down, 7.5 to go (yes, that adds up to 633.2, that's the official end to end distance according to the official distance calculator. no, i'm not changing the name of the challenge, it's close enough.

day 37: sight seeing

i've been blessed, today, with some brilliant sights, some of the biggies of the coast path. and since i'm tired after a day of (mostly) sun, i'm gonna be lazy and do a picture heavy post. first up:

portland in the sun, and some pretty awesome white cliffs.

next: durdle door, classic geology.

and hoards of people en route to:

...lulworth cove. it's like a geologist's pilgrimage. only they're mostly just tourists. and it'd be a pretty short pilgrimage at only a mile between them.

jin x

28.3 miles left, but 204.8 covered. which means the bench saying 500 left to poole but 132 miles from minehead was correct. it is 632 miles total. either way, i've walked around 16.5 miles today.

day 36: bye bye coasters

this morning i said farewell to the coasters, numbers duly exchanged, as they are slowing the pace a little to walk the final stretch with zoe. meanwhile i'll be pushing on to complete the walk in the advertised 39 days.

given that, today was a nice little jaunt around the isle of portland. what started out as quite a grey and miserable day turned into one of the nicest so far.

the island afforded me wonderful views of where i'd been:

where i'm headed:

via a lovely light house:

where i spent a lovely few hours carrying out damage limitation on my tan lines.

jin x

about 588 miles covered now, 11.5 miles today. only 42 miles left now.

day 35: five weeks in

i literally can't believe i've been going five weeks. yet minehead feels like a year ago!

if someone came along and told me they'd added on another two hundred miles, i'd walk them. happily enough aswell. but i'm really quite glad i'll be done in a few days and i'll get to see all my friends and stuff. five and a bit weeks is definitely long enough for me.

i've just realised that sounds downbeat, but it's actually been a great day for walking. we (the coasters and i) did the stretch along the landward side of fleet lagoon today, behind chesil beach. a good, long, mostly flat stretch in glorious sunshine, with occasional whispy clouds and a perfect breeze. good times indeed.

favourite views of today:

the dew on the grass this morning:

the length of the fleet lagoon:

and the sun, lowering in the sky over the lagoon:

i'm pretty sure the sunset will be up there too, but i've got to sign off and watch it first.

jin x

i'm now at 576.5 miles, covering 19.5 of those today. 53.5 left now.

day 34: bailing

it turns out i'm not very good at bailing. i'm very good at almost bailing. but i always seem to loose my nerve and carry on.

take today. it was raining. a lot:

it was also forcast to rain. a lot. all day. i therefore decided that, considering that i was ahead of schedule and could easily make up for a day's rest, i would sit out the rain and actually take a day's rest. i am here to enjoy myself after all. so i found a nice cafe (the good food cafe in lyme regis) with wifi and plug sockets and hot chocolate and cream teas and pasties with salads with flowers in:

and i waited.

and then all of a sudden it was brightening up. and the met office app agreed that it was brightening up for the whole afternoon. so i set off, meeting zoe on the path on the way.

it turned out that the met office app lied to me. when we hit charmouth it was most definitely raining again.

zoe was headed off to her cousin's house for a bed, while i found myself waiting out the rain again. as i did, arthur, mike and steve (another coaster who started half way round) turned up.

with it brightening up a little again, we set off for golden cap, with portland bill in the horizon:

(it's that faint wedge shape)

i expected golden cap, being the highest point on the south coast, to feel pretty big. but to be honest, we did almost as much ascent on some of the hills yesterday, so it wasn't too bad. i even had enough energy for the classic trig point shot:

only a few miles further on and we're camped up, looking like a mini camp site in front of a pub where i paid £3.30 for a soda water and lime. £3.30! still, at least we didn't have to to far to camp.

jin x

up to 557 miles today after my shortest day so far: 10 miles. only 73 left now.

day 33: 'ere int it lush?!

the first stint today was a bit of a rude (re)awakening to what hills feel like. it's been quite a while since there've been serious hills one after the other. unsurprisingly my sister, seven years my senior and a smoker, could really feel them. saying that we were equally glad to stop for a cream tea at the first signs of a cafe.

carrying on to beer and seaton, more hills were encountered. and the rain started. stopping for mash with cheese and beens (stupidly simple but brilliant to see on a cafe menu) we hoped it would let up. it didn't.

the next leg, to the dorset border and lyme regis, spanned seven miles, predominantly in a beautiful woodland on a historic landslide. the rain had made it quite slippy underfoot and particularly trecherous with the roots, which there were lots of:

but it also made all the ferns and ivy and everything all shiny and pretty:

i think i lost count of my uses of the words 'lush', 'green' and even 'verdant'.

jin x

547 miles in total now, giving my sister the taste of a 17 mile day. only 83 miles to go now.

day 32: livin' the dream

having got a brilliant nights sleep after staying up all day after staying up all night, it was a little bit of a later start in the morning. walking along nattering with my sister, who's joined me today for two days, time passed quickly from exmouth to budleigh salteron, where we stopped for lunch, and a bit of touristing. with a slightly shorter day today we took the time to have a bit of a look round the town. i'm glad we did cos it's a charming little town.

the path between budleigh salterton and sidmouth was particularly pleasant. the sun came out for us, but there were good stretches with the dappled shade of woodlands:

and there was a good breeze. my favourite type of walking weather.

reaching sidmouth by four, we strolled through the surf:

before stopping for a plymouth gin and tonic followed by reading the papers and sunbathing in deckchairs and feasting on fresh rolls, cream cheese and smoked makerel for tea. yum.

my favourite bits of today though, once again, have been the clouds. the mix when we were sunbathing:

and the colours at sunset:

hands down the best sunset i've seen so far.

jin x

530 miles now. another 13.5 down, and only 100 to go.

day 30: part 2

it was a nice chilled evening playing cribbage and enjoying the (almost) full moon rise. so, rested up, we set off for our night of walking at about half nine.

unfortunately, the first half of the walk, from oddicombe to teignmouth, was fairly wooded. this didn't afford much chance to walk by moonlight. however, when we did get glimpses through the tree's it was beautiful:

the first four hours somehow seemed to pass without a break. which was very tiring. at teignmouth we dragged out the sleeping bags while we brewed up for 'lunch':

looking a little tramp-like, we seriously considered bailing. i was at the point where i was wearing everything i owned, including spare socks as gloves:

we packed up, hoping to pitch up just outside teignmouth, by a bit of grass john remembered by the teignmouth sign. is was perfect. only there seemed to be some other people around, so being cautious, we carried on a little further.

when i say a little further, i of course mean eight miles further. to starcross. by this time we were out in the open, so torches put away we soldiered on, albeit a bit tired. we were justly rewarded with our second consecutive sunrise:

i think i might even prefer them to sunsets. i love the way you can watch for half an hour and it still surprises you when the sun actually shows itself. it's magical.

jin x

up to 516.5 miles in total now. i'm almost thinking of switching to counting down the miles? miles overnight: around 14.5 official, at least one extra for detours. total miles in 24 hours: 30.

day 30: part 1

today started with a sunrise. the first one i've been up and out of the tent for. it was amazing. the camera could not handle the awesomeness.

i was about to write that we've had a pretty short day. but it wasn't ridiculously short. considering we're now resting up and eating pizzas in preparation to walk another leg tonight.

it was full moon last night. they've given clear skies for tonight. it's a section, by the teignmouth-starcross section of the railway, that i've seen a hundred times in the light. we can rest up all day tomorrow at my sister's. in short, there seems no better time to do a moonlight walk.

as for today. it's gone fairly easily. i've been surprised, as the book said i would be, by the path round the brixham to torquay section. there have been some pretty good sections including lots of nice woods. though the way markers todayproved a little tricky to spot at times:

i'm gonna go now, fresh donuts are calling, but i'll be posting again in about twelve hours, probably quite knackered.

jin x

502 miles now, so 15.5 today.

day 29: logistics

so my friend emma was supposed to be joining us yesterday at salcombe. but she's an overworked nurse who overslept so then she was gonna join us at hallsands. but then one of our other friends was leaving cardiff to go and work in australia. so she had to go out but was gonna join us in dartmouth. then she got to bed at six in the morning and i thought she wouldn't be joining us at all. then she woke up at nearly three, got in the car and drove down to brixham, which is where we are tonight.

it turns out meeting up on the south west coast path can be quite tricky if plans have to be changed because there's big gaps between towns and only very patchy signal. but she made it. in the end.

despite walking a long day today, around twenty miles, i can't think of that much to say about it.

i think one of the most striking things was that i noticed that i now feel as tired at the end of a twenty miler as i did after our first few days of around fourteen miles. so i guess the walking is paying off.

i'm gonna leave you with gratuitous prettiness of the sky over slapton sands early this morning:

jin x

total milage is now 486.5, making it 21.5 miles again. it's crazy how they add up.

day 28: i'd hate to have been today's weatherman

it was raining this morning when we woke up. by the time we set off from burton farm it was pretty much a white out. that lifted to cloud, which eventually separated to give us sun, before clouding over again. i think that's what they call changeable.

it was a late start. but we made good time into salcombe. six miles in just over two hours. and there were hills.

after lunch we made less good time. but we did have a look around a coastwach visitor centre. we also had a bit of a sunbathe.

we're now camped up a mile further on from this sign:

hoping the tents dry out a bit from this mornings hasty packing before we have to get into them.

jin x

going by the sign we're at 463 miles now. going by the official distance calculator, we're at 465.3. it feels more like the 16 or so miles of the distance calculator, than the 14 using the sign, so i'm gonna stick with 465. either way, we're a bloody long way round now.

day 27: a bit breezy

for a little while i thought we might get away with packing the tents away dry today. with such a windy night they it was looking good. unfortunately it started raining at about six and carried on til about nine, when we'd been walking for an hour. ah well. one can live in hope.

it's been a fairly foggy/drizzly day today.

and at times the wind was literally blowing me sidewards. bizarrely i really enjoy weather like that. i kinda want to grumble. but then i find this massive grin on my face.

it was a short day. we got to burton farmhouse, the b&b i used to work at, at around half one. after only nine miles.

we stopped for lunch then headed out for the circular walk from the farm which takes in two miles of coast path. it also takes in over two miles of other footpaths, but means we can start a little further round in the morning.the best bit was we got to go sans bags. good times.

jin x

449 miles in total now, including the extra 2 miles on our bag-less stroll. 11 coast path miles today, just over 14 total miles today.

day 26: waiting

john is back with me today. his feet are mostly better. obviously not completely repaired in just two weeks. but they have skin. which is good.

on the walking front we had a good day. although we did take the first real shortcut. the 'formal' coast path route takes in the wonders of laira bridge and hooe in plymouth while the mount batten ferry acts as a 'shortcut'. all of the other ferries are part of the official route.

having no interweb tonight i can't say exactly how much we cheated. let's call it a few miles. however, even if i'd have realised it was a shortcut, i still would've taken it. we'll make it up with miles inland to hostels and things.

the walking was mostly nice and easy today. nice wide grass tracks with blue sea to our right, blue sky overhead and a good sea breeze. in short, it's was the kind of day john and i both imagined prior to setting out.

we also got to go straight through a corn (or wheat or barley or something, we can't tell the difference) field. so i pretended to be a scarecrow:

it's all about the little things!

in other news, my mum made me a bag cover to say about my walk and count the days i've been walking. it's awesome. and it's helping to get people to come over and have a chat and wish me luck and give me sponsorship pennies. in short, it's doing it's job.

that's it in the corner of the photo, taken while we were waiting for the tide to drop so we could wade the erme. the only river with no ferry at all.

we got there around high tide at four-ish. we managed to wade at just gone eight. not too bad, but with the wind it was a little chilly waiting. by the time we got round to wading i'm not sure i had any clothes left to put on!

jin x

past two thirds of the way now at 438 miles. 17.5 of those today. (4.9 skipped)

day 25: home

i got a lie in today cos i only had three and three quarter miles to walk before meeting friends at eleven. or at least i would've done if the sun hadn't woken me up. nevermind.

a quick start meant i had a little wait for kate and rhys, but then we were off. the day passed very quickly. between catching up with friends and knowing i'd be in plymouth it was no time before i was, well, in plymouth.

a quick pit stop for pimms at the edgcumbe arms to bid farewell to cornwall provided a nice rest before the home straight of plymouth hoe.

only of course while it may be home, it's not the end. there's two more weeks to go. and a little bit of me is starting to think i'm gonna struggle going back to real life. i'm really taking to this life on the trail.

picture wise i'm gonna leave you with a view of plymouth from penlee point. a new perspective for me. it almost looks nice there. almost.

jin x

new total is 415.5 miles which makes it 12.5 today. that means tomorrow will hurt.

day 24: solo

so today was my last solo day. and it was a goodun.

i got on the trail before eight and set off for polperro. it was good walking weather sunny, but with odd clouds and a good breeze. stopping for a quick second breakfast and a chat with a local i pressed on to looe. making looe before lunch i realised i should easily be able to make portwrinkle by the end of the day, which would keep my walk into plymouth on tuesday reasonable, so that i can make the most of home comforts.

getting to portwrinkle at about half four, despite stopping for chips, hot chocolate and wifi at the smugglers inn at seaton, i decided to press on. not too far though. i'm meeting friends at rame head tomorrow mid morning so i needed to leve myself a couple of miles at least.

i passed several ideal camping spots by tregantle fort, but being mod property i carried on. i managed to find a nice flat spot at the back of a car park three miles on from protwrinkle at around quarter past six.

by the end of the day i definitely felt like my feet were dragging. but when i checked the distance calculator i'd done 19.5 miles, in ten and a half hours. including several breaks. not bad for my last day alone.

as i said, tomorrow i have friends joining me. then in plymouth, john and his newly healed feet will be rejoining me for the rest of the walk.

i've enjoyed my solo time. for the most part. there've been a few points where i've got a bit homesick, but mostly it's been good. i've had visits from family. and days with various coasters. and generally kept up pretty good time.

but it will be nice to have proper company again

now. photos:

check out the little sheep up there on the horizon...

and the amazing patterns the clouds make on the water...

and the waves coming in through portwrinkle harbour as i soaked my feet...

jin x

as i said, it was 19.5 miles today. which makes 403 in total. getting close to two thirds of the way round now.

day 23: rain

we'd heard forecasts that today would bring rain. so when mike and i woke to glorious sunshine we were pretty chuffed. we packed up and ate our fish for breakfast. poached, along with some eggs and seasoned with parmesan, black pepper and bacon bits in a pitta. yum.

who said backpackers couldn't eat well?!

we had an average start, but earlier than zoe. not far out of mevagissey we met up with arthur again and walked on together.

it's been a bit more up and down again today.

i can feel it in the feet. we were very late to lunch today aswell, almost four o'clock. i could feel that too. i think it's fair to say i was flagging.

we stopped off on a pub in polkerris and refueled on pasties and chips. it was good timing cos that was when the thunder hit.

we waited out the worst of the rain. but we needed to crack on, so on the waterproofs went. luckily, after an hour or so of proper rain it stopped. the head down plodding was miserable while it lasted, but once the sun came back out it became a lovely evening.

i left the guys in polruan, just past fowey, where they were heading for a campsite. but not needing a shower, and keen to get in a couple more solo wildcamps before I pick up company again, i powered on.

i thought i'd go until i found the first likely looking spot, but i seemed to have more in me so i carried on. nearly four miles on. to a little mostly flat spot recommended by a lovely dog walking lady as somewhere not home to a heard of horned cattle.

i'll leave you with some gratuitous (but pretty awesome) clouds:

jin x

3 miles short of polperro makes it 383.5 miles in total, 21.5 of those today. i'm pretty proud of that.

day 22: coaster community

we're coasters apparently, us nutters who walk the whole coast path in one go. and we've got a nice little community going now.

i started out this morning with my mum again. but she left me
in portloe around lunch time to get back home.

picking up my pace a bit, i managed to catch up to mike and zoe, two other coasters i've met a couple of times now. we joined forces and walked the rest of the day together into mevagissey.

it's really nice to find other people, arthur, and now them, to tag along with. we all spur each other on. i doubt i'd have bothered getting this far today if they hadn't been headed here.

zoe, on getting to mevagissey, headed off to find her friends who are putting her up for the night. i tagged along with mike while he tried to find a b&b for the night, to no avail. so we went to the pub.

in the pub we met a nice man who gave us some free fillets of freshly caught sole. having eaten already we're saving them for morning. i'm bizarrely looking forward to fish for breakfast.

leaving the pub we expected to walk for a good half hour to find a camping spot, but we ended up finding a spot still basically in mevagissey. where, despite facing east, we got some pretty good sunset clouds:

jin x

362 miles in now, which makes today a 17 miler for me. after a shorter day yesterday i was feeling it today.

day 21: ferries and farm animals

an early start saw arthur and i reach falmouth before 9.30. this gave me a nice amount of bimble time, once i'd left my bag with the helpful st mawes ferry lady, before my mummy arrived to walk with me for the day. we picked up tasty treats for a picnic lunch and set off for the ferry journeys. first to st mawes, and then to place. no, not a place, but a place called place.

after a leisurely lunch we set off for the afternoons walk. going at a slightly slower pace cos my mum's got a dodgy knee, we enjoyed the varying woodland and farmland tracks.

until one of the paths had cows with their calves all over it. seems i've still not got over my fear of cows. a bit of clapping had them moving along nicely though and we made our way through.

then came the dartmoor ponies. right on the path and facing our way. evidently people had been ignoring the 'don't feed the ponies' advice. cos over they came, expecting food. by that point we were too close to walk purposely. so we backed off. the second attempt found them facing the other way, so, clapping again, we managed to cajole them of the path. turns out i'm not over my fear of ponies either. damn.

we've ended up camped up at pendower beach. national trust owned but wild camping, with fires, is allowed as long as no mess is left. there's even public conveniences that aren't locked at night. we've camped out of the way cos there were a few crates being carried down to the beach, but all in all it looks to be a civilised spot. a great find.

and nice for a photo with the lights of portscatho in the background.

jin x

345 total miles. it's adding up now! 13 miles today. not bad considering the long breaks.

day 20: half way...

...and then some!

set out in fairly good time, nice and rested from the b&b. the weather which came in over night had cleared nicely and it looked set to be a good days walking.

heading down through coverack i saw arthur at a cafe having breckie, and joined him for a teacake. we set out together and have ended up walking the while day together. ive done pretty well distance wise. passing half way before lunch:

passed my planned stopping place before 3pm. and headed on to falmouth. we've ended up camping up just outside falmouth, not much short of tomorrow's planned finish.

it's been really nice to walk with company. and arthur, being a veteran swcp walker, is a mine of information about not only the path, but all the flowers along it.

having done a few extra miles for the last few days, it's starting to strike me how my feet aren't as tired by the end of the day as they were. it's nice. i think i'm really talking to this walk malarkey.

favourite view of today:

the view back to helford. i love how menacing the water can look when the weather isn't even that bad. i think i'm changing my mind on the whole 'clouds don't make for good views' thing.

jin x

the official distance to swanpool, just down the hill from where we're camped is 332.4 so i'm gonna call it 332. that's just under 19 miles. and for a change that sounds spot on.

day 19: addendum

so it turned out the campsite wanted me to pay more than they'd quoted, and they were rude. I wouldn't recommend chy carne holiday park nr kennack sands.

what i would recommend is manning up for a further 5 miles and heading to coverack, where there's a lovely bnb proprietess by the name of bridget who has just done me the amazing service of letting me stay despite not actually opening for business for another 4 days.

the name of the establishment, which is beautifully kitted out, is the boak house (boak meanin 'the lookout' in cornish), in coverack. she'll be findable through the coverack website and trip advisor (phone number available, just ask me) and I thoroughly suggest anyone looking to stay in the area check it out.

jin x

so it's 313.2 to coverack. that means I should reach half way early tomorrow morning. that makes this whole thing so more real!

day 19: repetitive strain

unsurprisingly, i suppose, i seem to have developed an rsi type twinge in my right knee. nothing too painful. just a sporadic electric shock type sensation on the inside of the knee. it seems only fair though. i must have taken in the region of 600,000 steps by now. very possibly more due to shorter steps on hills.

another early start today meant i made it to the lizard for lunch time. with the weather closing in i headed off for kennack sands, which i'll be staying just up the road from, in an actual campsite, with actual showers and washing machines.

on my way i bumped into arthur again, te yorkshire man we met on the first day. he's running a little behind schedule unfortunately. but it did mean i had company for a mile or two. and i got to find out his name at last.

i'm off up to the campsite now, hoping they have tumble driers aswell as washing machines cos it's looking like rain tonight.

i'll leave you with this:

one of the many gravity defying arches on the coast path.

jin x

the official distance calculator on the coast path website gives 306.3 to cadgwith, which i passed about 1.75 miles back, so i'm gonna say 308 total distance. i must've missed out some miles on the daily totals though, cos i havn't walked 23 miles today. not at all.