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CLXXVII – Ellenabeich to Oban

THE second day of my August 2017 walking trip was all about doing stuff I’d already done, only differently. First, I would have to backtrack, doing part of the previous day’s walk in reverse. Then I’d be completing my journey to Oban — which I’d already done once ‘unofficially’ — though by a different route. But before any of that, I resolved to get a proper look at Ellenabeich, which I’d only glimpsed in darkness and/or driving rain…

CXXX – Millom to Ravenglass

I SHOULD know better than to try to make plans. Staying overnight in Millom, for instance, so that I could just get up early and start walking. That was a plan right up until the day before, when my hotel turned out not to have an actual room for me to stay in.

Some last-minute problem-solving saw me staying at St Bees instead, which meant that my hotel was right next to a beach but not, unfortunately, next to Millom. My earliness would now be constrained by the railway and the rest of my plans would have to be somewhat fluid…

CVII – Holyhead to Cemaes

WHILE I may have avoided walking in August, on account of hot weather and everywhere being booked solid, September is an entirely different prospect. And this is good because if August is optional then the start of September is almost compulsory for walking: I started my coastal perambulations on the third of September 2010, which means that as September rolled around again I was into my fifth year of walking.

XCIV – Aberdovey to Friog

ONE problem with the increasing distance from my home of these coastal walks is that I now require so much longer to get to the start and back from the finish that I essentially lose whole days just travelling. I was quite keen to minimise that on my most recent trip so I endeavoured to return to Aberdovey as early in the day as was possible in order to get some more walking in from the very moment I arrived.

XLIV – Mullion to Newlyn

DAY six of my week in Cornwall saw me rise bright and early and open my curtains to the sight of a wall of dense, white fog. It was, I decided, a faerie fog.

XXXIII – Dartmouth to Torcross

HAVING taken the previous weekend off from walking in order to give my knees a chance to rest, I decided to ease myself back into my perambulatory pastime with a leisurely walk of moderate distance, preceded by a short stint of being an unashamed grockle.

XXVIII – Weymouth to Burton Bradstock

SATURDAY morning saw me up with the lark, by dint of having already been up with the bat and the night owl, ready to take advantage of whatever fun, frolics and inevitable rain the late summer bank holiday weekend could throw at me.

I duly squelched aboard the last night bus, having been treated to some of that rain between my front door and the bus stop and proceeded to dry out to merely cold and damp by the time I reached London Waterloo.