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South West Coast Path Overnight
What was the most interesting Bed and Breakfast we stayed at overnight on the South West Coast Path? What was the most interesting Bed and Breakfast we stayed at overnight on the South West Coast Path?
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The flowers that bloom in the spring….
I returned from my first walk along the South West Coast Path one May, resolved to always make time for a long walk in late spring every year, when the spring wild flowers are at their spectacular best. Like most resolutions, I haven’t always kept to it, but it’s one I hate to break. So…
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Hiking the South West Coast Path
I’ve hiked the South West Coast Path twice. This time I chose to go the “wrong way”, starting in Dorset and ending at Minehead in Somerset. At 630 miles, it’s the longest national trail, but the challenge of completing it is not the reason why I picked it as a celebratory hike in my seventieth…
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Travelling Light
Most stories of long distance hikes start with tales of vast packs impossible to lift, and the agonies of blisters: an endurance test enough to put anyone off. No, it doesn’t have to be like that. Even on our long trek through Greece our packs always weighed less than 12 kilos, including food and water.…
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Silver hikers
The Burren, Eire. 2022. This year I celebrated my seventieth birthday and became a ‘silver hiker’. My mother died when she was seventy, and my father not long after, aged seventy five. So it felt like a dangerous milestone. Does everyone look back at their parents when assessing their own life chances? Luckily, the goal…
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Trains and boats, no planes!
“Dolphins” cried Alan. And there they were, peering up at us from beside the prow of the ferry. An instant and they were gone. No time to take a photo! Surely this is the best way to arrive in Greece: waking to see the sunrise over the Ionian islands and the Albanian coast, before cruising…