And Finally…South West Coast Path, Day 46

Swanage to South Haven Point

25,000 steps

“The wearisome grand passions and distasteful excitements of active lives, stressed to breaking point, are supplanted in the end by the implacable lassitude of walking: just walk-ing. Serenity is the immense sweetness of no longer expecting anything, just walking, just moving on.”

Frederic Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

On this, the final morning of my long walk round the southwestern peninsula of England, I reflect on the miles I’ve covered. That is, if I really have covered them: my son recently told me that my body’s cells will have been completely replaced over seven years.

The implication seemed to be that the person who started from Minehead in April 2016 is not the same person who’s finishing. Maybe I haven’t really completed the Path; I’m sharing the achievement with someone else, some now vanished past version of myself.

(I found out this cell replacement idea was not strictly true: https://www.livescience.com/33179-does-human-body-replace-cells-seven-years.html)

This last day is something of a dying sigh after the full-throated glories of the past 600 miles. There’s a short walk along the Swanage seafront before we tackle the only remaining climb on the Path, a moderately strenuous ascent up onto Ballard Cliff.

Once up, there’s a fine view back over Swanage and the coast we walked yesterday.

From here, we have an easy stroll on a flat headland toward a promontory, with a popular view over Old Harry Rocks.

There are numerous Sunday strollers about, and we continue on a busy gravelled path down to the beach at Studland, where we have coffee at a National Trust cafe.

All at once it’s almost over. There’s only two more miles along the beach, surrounded by more casual walkers and their dogs, to South Haven Point. The end of the Path.

Apart from the sight of an eager naturist among the dunes, the final miles pass without incident, allowing me to think back over the highlights of the month and half worth of walking, which I have spread over seven years:

• I think back to the very long second day, when I arrived at the Hunters Inn after a thunderstorm. The isolated inn, with its peacocks and lack of phone connections, felt like it was at the end of the world

• I remember the miserable lunch in the Coach and Horses pub at Buckland Brewer. Sam and I were soaked and tired and he was threatening to bail on me when the intervention of passing life coaches saved our trip

• There was another stormy night at the cinematically atmospheric Hartland Quay hotel with the Prof, followed by the gruelling but memorable afternoon of the ten valleys

• I recall a morning when I came off the sleeper train from London and was quickly transported by a simple boat trip to the Roseland Peninsula into a paradise of wild garlic and spring flowers, helped on my way by Overend’s pal, Mark (Cornwall’s answer to Tom Cruise). His blessing – “May the spirit of Peter go with you” – helped me on my way.

• Or the wet afternoon in north Cornwall when I realised lightweight hiking could go too far, as my lighter boots dumped me in the mud

• Or the equally wet day in south Devon, when I crossed several estuaries, by ferry and by wading.

Above all, the numerous occasions – too many to remember, but usually happening several times each and every day of walking – when I paused for a moment to look ahead, and filled my eyes and my soul with the ravishing beauty of this untamed coast of England.

Every mile of which is lodged in my heart, to be carried with me always.

At last, the Sandbanks ferry comes in sight, and as we trudge the last half mile of beach the Prof and I see our wives waiting to greet us. All that remains is to pose for photos by the South West Coast Path monument, sister of the one I passed in Minehead all those years and miles ago.

I don’t know how I feel about completing the walk. For the past few years, I’ve constantly had the next stretch of the Path to plan for and anticipate, it’s always been with me: always in the back of my mind I’ve been thinking about tackling the next bit.

When life got busy, I could always look ahead to the next time I’d be out on my own in the sun and the wind, with nothing on my to-do list except putting one foot in front of the other and allowing the big sky and open sea to fill me up with grace. It will be strange not having that connection any more.

“If you are in a bad mood go for a walk. If you are still in a bad mood, go for another walk.”

Hippocrates

He’s been a spiritual companion on the walk, so I’ll leave the final words to Overend Watts – bass player, glam rock poseur, long-distance walker. When he finished the Path, he wrote about:

“…the overwhelming sense of relief that I’d done it. I’d succeeded. Nothing could take that success away from me now. Nothing and nobody…It’d been the greatest challenge of my life and by succeeding I immediately felt like a far stronger person.”

This guy played bass on “All The Young Dudes.” If he took pride in completing the Path, it will do for me.

Three Shards and A Firing Range-South West Coast Path, Day 45

Lulworth to Swanage

51,000 steps

Just dwell on that a moment.

51,000 steps.

Fifty-One. Chuffing.Thousand. Chuffing steps.

Organising this leg of the Path has been tricky. The Path east of Lulworth crosses a large area used by the military since 1917 for firing practice. These ranges are generally only open at weekends. When they’re closed, the poor walker faces a long and tedious detour inland. Accordingly, the whole trip has hinged around being in Lulworth on a morning the ranges are open.

To complicate matters further, within the range and beyond there is virtually no place to stop, to stay overnight or to get refreshments. We’ve known all along that today we face an early start and what the trusty Book describes as:

“A particularly long, tough stretch…there are some steep ascents and descents. Most of the walk is remote from habitation, so pay attention to escape routes in case they are needed…a long and hard day…”

Intimidated by this, we’re leaving early. Our B&B host, Shirley, has kindly left a cool bag outside our room, containing a packed breakfast and lunch. Off we go, sadly without having had any coffee.

The Path offers us an early statement of intent with a steep climb up above Lulworth Cove. We get a final chance to enjoy Lulworth’s supremely cove-like aspect, before a steep, stepped descent to enter the ranges.

The morning starts sunny, with cotton wool clouds scattered across the sky. Fifty minutes in, the Prof announces that his watch says he has already met his daily target for distance ascended.

The Path soon responds by giving us a bonus: a long, steep, arduous climb from near sea level to the top of Bindon Hill. (37 flights of stairs according to the professorial watch.)

Once up high, we walk along the ridge, with the sea like a shiny blue tabletop to our right, abridged by a couple of tiny sailboats far out.

On the inland side, there’s a view over a tank range, one of the surprisingly few visible signs of a century of military practice hereabouts.

Dead Tank

We descend again to Worbarrow Bay, and turn inland to reach the ghost village of Tyneham. This was evacuated in 1943, as the ranges prepared for the Normandy invasion, and abandoned permanently following compulsory purchase by the Army in 1948.

We wander among the abandoned buildings, including a schoolhouse and a church, but fail to find anywhere offering coffee.

Regaining the coast path, we pass above interesting tidal shelves at Broad Bench.

We leave the ranges through a fortified gate close to a solitary oil well.

The Prof raises hopes of a coffee van or hut at Kimmeridge Bay, where there is a car park and some small buildings clustered close to the sea. These hopes are soon dashed. We eat our sandwiches on the grass overlooking the waves, close to the ‘Wild Sea Centre’ (which doesn’t have a cafe).

The day has become cloudy and breezy. There are kayakers in the sea, and the waves make a pleasant murmur to accompany our rest stop.

When we resume, my legs tell me – by means of tiredness and stiffness – that they had assumed that was the end of the day’s walking. In fact, I inform them, it’s barely half over.

After a stiff initial climb, the walking is easier along the level ground on the Kimmeridge Ledges, and we make good time for a while, until the Path reverts  to type and gives us a very challenging climb up onto Hons-Tout Cliff.

As we climb, there is a sumptuous view over the terrain we’ve walked.

But for most of the climb, I confess my view is more like this…

After a recovery period, we descend again and turn inland at Champion’s Pool, a cove almost as perfectly cove-like as Lulworth.

There’s some fiddle-faddling about with the map to find the back way to Worth Matravers, but finally – after seven hours walking – we trudge into the Square and Compass pub for beer, water, pasty. And coffee. And rest.

Once again, about fifteen miles in, my legs think the walk is complete. It’s tempting to stay. The pub is overflowing with walkers, cyclists and weekend pleasure-seekers. But to my legs’ disappointment we resume again, taking a slanting path downhill and picking up the coast path again.

I could do without the last five miles, which seem interminable. Generally level, winding along a narrow path through gorse, until we finally reach a bushy ridge at Durlston Head. Even from here, we have another superfluous mile down into a Swanage, my bones feeling every mile behind us, my clothes damp with sweat.

Until – at bloody last – we reach the Swanage youth hostel and the rucksack can finally be removed from my weary shoulders.

On top of the 51,000 steps, the Prof’s watch tells us that we have ascended the equivalent of 350 flights of stairs. This is like climbing London’s Shard three times.

One interesting phenomenon I’ve observed over the many days on the Coast Path: I often get the planning wrong, misjudging distances and the challenge of the terrain. Perhaps I’ve finally got the hang of it – I thought today was going to be several miles too long and very hard going. And it was.