What’s it like to walk the entire British coast?
Outdoor headlines
11 January 2011 09:43
To coincide with the Coastal High Life feature in February’s edition of Trail Magazine (out now) Trail talks to Amy Leigh, who last year walked the entire British coast for charity about what it’s like to walk it all…
What made you want to walk all 6000 miles of Britain’s coast?
I was looking for the biggest challenge I could do. Once I started looking into doing a long distance walk, I came across the book Turn Right at Land’s End by John Merrill, who did a continuous walk around the UK in the 1970s. That was my inspiration.
In that distance you could probably have walked to the far east…
Birmingham to Singapore, I think is often quoted. I used John Merrill’s route – and his timescale up to a point – instead of working out the route for myself, though I did have to tweak it now and there. I don’t know how I would have approached it if I didn’t have the book for reference.
It took you 240 days… must take some commitment.
My brother died five years ago as a result of kidney failure, and that was when I started fundraising for Kidney Research UK. I did the great north run and the three peaks challenge for the charity, and I wondered what I could do from there. It was a mad conversation one night over a drink, and we wondered if it was possible.
So how did you tackle it?
Clockwise, starting at Guy’s Hospital in London. I walked the whole of the south coast of England first. I was really excited about doing the South West Coast path as it was a really good National Trail, and for several weeks I was going to have a really good path to follow – although the weather was particularly bad when we started. They reckon if you do the complete path, it’s three times the height of Everest. People don’t realise that Cornwall has some of the steepest sections of the coastline. Tintagel especially.
The British coast is so eclectic – did it feel varied to you or did it all blur into one?
It’s funny because as I was going through the seasons it changed very naturally – the scenery really blended well. It was so beautiful. The only drawback to the way I did it was that I was flying through the areas.
Which sections left the biggest impression?
The west coast of Scotland in particular. I think people had a romantic view that I was walking along a sandy beach or along a footpath – I was at one point struggling through bracken taller than me, there were weaterfalls, there were rivers I had to cross in bad conditions, plus the fact that the coastline is very crinkley indeed! There was a very memorable stretch in Wales, a beach of probably about three miles – and I knew that to get from one end of the other in roughly one hour before the tied came in, and the cliffs – and path – had fallen away.
What was the image you had in your head which led you on?
Getting to Cape Wrath [in the far north of Scotland]. I was very excited and very anxious at the same time. There isn’t a footpath, it’s quite difficult terrain, being isolated and quite hostile. Once I’d got to Cape Wrath, I felt I’d done the toughest part of the walk.
Did you ever get tired of the sea?
Never. Sometimes I had to go inland a little for MOD land – and every time I came inland, I began to feel uneasy. As soon as I came back and had the sea on my left hand side, I felt OK again.
What was the hardest bit?
The weather conditions at the very beginning were harder than I imagined – I thought I had the right gear, and I would be fine, but that wasn’t the case. The weather was just so bad… that was what got me down the most.
So what’s next?
I’m writing a book about the experience. I don’t know what’s next after that – I’ve never been into foreign travel. I’ve jokingly said I would walk round the world… but that’s a huge undertaking!
Visit Amy’s charity page at www.kidneyresearchukevents.org/amygoescoastal
The February 2011 edition of Trail is out now.