200 Miles

It was Day Nine on the South West Coast Path.

I’d been walking for 7 hours, leaving behind the maze of Perranporth’s towering sand dunes and slowly making my way through the final few miles to my destination of Portreath. Temperatures were in the mid-20s – perfect June holiday weather – but without a cloud in the sky or a tree to find shade under, the sun was draining every ounce of valuable energy while my water bottle was steadily running dry.

I dragged my tired body along the metre-wide dusty path, boots slipping on uneven gravel and knees protesting at every agonising hill. So. Many. Hills. I’d started my trip with the opinion that the view at the end was always worth any climb, but that got old very quickly on the undulating coast path where said view always includes the next climb you’ll be tackling before you’ve even had a chance to catch your breath.

Dosed up on a cocktail of paracetamol, energy tablets and Ibuprofen gel, the half term crowds on the bustling beach of Porthtowan fell behind me and the path took on its golden glow in the slowly setting sun. I walked alone amongst a barren landscape, a wire fence cordoning off the MOD site of Nancekuke Common to my left, while to my right an expanse of thorny gorse and abandoned war-time shelters hid the views I had become reliant on to distract me from the ever-present exhaustion.

As was now the norm for the last few miles of my days, I willed my heavy legs to pick up the pace – after all, the quicker I moved, the quicker I could stop walking. They refused. The last of my energy had been drained by an unexpected climb just before and I opened my mouth to let out a frustrated sigh. Instead, a loud sob followed by an explosion of angry expletives escaped into the sea air.

Why was I doing this to myself?

Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?

Hadn’t I been looking forward to this?

And how much of my dramatic outburst had those evening bird watchers ahead witnessed?

Nine days into my hike and this certainly wasn’t the first, or last, time I’d questioned my decision to walk 200 miles on my own. Complaining to my parents down the phone about my ever-multiplying blisters as I hobbled into the quiet harbour of Portreath, my dad’s well-intentioned, although ill-timed, question of “well, are you enjoying yourself?” brought me to tears that he would dare ask such a silly thing.

Friends and family had already raised their concerns even before I’d stepped on the train to Cornwall, simply asking “why?” when I’d announced my grand plans. Why would a 27-year-old woman of average-fitness, who refused to attempt the Gold Duke of Edinburgh award because a week long expedition looked like too much effort, decide to willingly carry a 15kg backpack and camp for 200 miles on her own, and even attempt to justify it as fun?

Why indeed.

In a slight paradox, I chose to walk the path in search of just that answer.

In March 2020, when a strange virus crossed our shores and forced a lockdown upon the country, life came to a stand-still. I was abruptly pulled from my state of auto-pilot and the life that I had been desperately trying to hold together, one where I had kept myself busy to distract myself from a simple fact that is part and parcel of adult life: I had no idea what I was doing.

After losing all sense of my own identity – what I liked, what I didn’t like, where I wanted my life to go – I knew I needed some time away. Away from work, away from other people, away from the room that I had confined myself to for the best part of a year.

In a time where control was lacking, I needed to take back some form of control over my own life.

And so in 2021, I decided to do it in the best way I know how.

I decided to go on an adventure.

Long distance hiking is something that’s been on my mind for years ever since I read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild in the run up to my solo backpacking trip in 2017. I know – I’m a cliché. Consumed by the fears and worries for my travels ahead, Strayed’s own courage and bravery gave me the belief I needed that I could do it. She came with me across the world in my backpack, the extra weight a small price to pay for the comfort she provided. When my trip took me to New Zealand, where I would spend most of my days following any trail I could find, I realised my own love of hiking. It was there on those trails that I made a promise to myself that, one day, I would follow in Strayed’s footsteps: I would find a path and I would do nothing but walk, walk, walk.

Of course life happened and though that promise got pushed aside by new responsibilities, it was still there in the background. A faint ember of an idea burning away within the tangled depths of my mind.

Then in October 2020, I was scrolling through Facebook when a series of photos caught my eye. A contact I don’t remember adding was hiking 630 miles along the South West Coast Path. In that moment, I remembered the promise I’d made myself about going on a long distance hike and that ember glowed a little brighter.

I made the decision to hike the South West Coast Path.

Unfortunately, working a full-time job meant that taking enough time off to walk the whole 630 miles wasn’t possible. Instead, I was granted 3 weeks. Spending those 3 weeks walking in Cornwall just made sense. It’s a place that I hold dear, having spent much of my childhood holidaying along the coast and then living there for 3 years while at university in Falmouth. And with Cornish blood running through my veins, it’s a place I feel connected to. It’s somewhere I always feel at home.

So I chose to walk the path in the hope that, by going back to my family roots, I would somehow find the answers I was seeking drifting through the salty sea air, floating atop the crashing waves, hidden within the petals of the purple fox gloves.

I hoped that by walking the path, following the sign-posted acorns from one place to another and reducing my purpose to placing one foot in front of the other, I would feel less lost.

I hoped that, by stepping back into nature and getting rid of any other distraction, I would have the time and space to think and unravel the tangled mess that had taken up residence in my mind.

Did it work?

Not really.

I didn’t have some grand epiphany.

I didn’t find the answers I was looking for, and when my feet passed the invisible 200 mile mark, I still felt lost about what I would do next.

But I did find something else.

I found that it didn’t matter.

On the path, my days were guided by a simple phrase: one step at a time. I couldn’t afford to think too far ahead. If I did, the whole trip would have been too overwhelming and it would have felt impossible (although believe me, there were definitely days when it was just that). Breaking the path into sections and focusing on the simple task of getting through the day ahead made it seem much less daunting. After all, 12 miles doesn’t sound nearly as scary as 200. And on the miles that left me depleted, dragging my aching body up and down countless hills and across energy-zapping sand, it was literally a case of just putting one foot in front of the other.

Viewing the path this way meant there was no sense in dwelling. The days that didn’t go to plan, the days when my knee was in agony, the day I got lost climbing up the sand dunes of Perranporth, the day I was left shouting at the sea in front of some bird watchers. For every moment that went wrong, it didn’t matter, because there were so many more which brought joy. The freedom of being out in the wilderness, the sea stretching to the horizon, not a soul around apart from the birds gliding in the sky above and the seals bobbing in the waves below. Technicolour sunsets across sweeping beaches and crystal clear waters. Freshly baked Cornish pasties and dripping clotted cream ice cream. It was all worth it. I just had to keep going to get to them.

It doesn’t matter that I didn’t find my answer on the path. I found something else: determination to keep going regardless of the struggle, with the faith that there will be a beautiful view waiting on the horizon.

And it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there because, after all, everyone is on their own path.

I just decided to take that literally.