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CCXXXIX – Banff to Fraserburgh

DAY three of my April 2023 trip began with my throwing back the curtains of my hotel room to find a thin veil of cloud obscuring the sky. The weather was warm and dry though, so I considered this natural screen against sunburn a bonus. I was, at this point, still naively hoping I’d reach the end of day six without resembling an ambulatory tomato and on day three that still looked like it was possible…

CCXXXVIII – Cullen to Banff

MID-April, I awoke in my hotel room, about half a mile west of Cullen (Inbhir Cuilinn) proper, ready to begin my second day of a six-day walking trip. This would be a shorter walk than the day before, at about sixteen miles, and would take me through Cullen itself and onwards to Banff. That’s the original Scottish Banff, of course, not the Canadian one, which would be a far longer and more challenging walk, what with the ocean and all.

CCXXVII – Wick to Lybster

THE last day of April 2022 began with my awakening early enough to be downstairs and ready to eat the very moment breakfast service began in my hotel. Then, pleasingly filled with both bacon and enthusiasm, I headed outside to walk through Wick and then southwards to Lybster, the name of which I had as yet no idea how to pronounce (it’s ‘libe-ster’ not ‘lib-ster’).

LXVII – Barry to Merthyr Mawr

I MAY, as the twilight began to lighten the horizon on Saturday morning, have wondered to myself why I thought it was a good time to be sitting in Cardiff Central Station (or Caerdydd Canolog in Welsh). The answer, of course, was that it enabled me to catch the first train to Barry and so to resume my walk around the coast. It didn’t, on the other hand, do much for sating my body’s desire for sleep. But hey, it had had a two hour snooze on the overnight coach from London. That would just have to be enough…

XXXVII – Plymouth Loop

OCTOBER having brought unseasonal warm weather to southern England, I made doubly sure to have packed sunscreen before catching a train back down to Plymouth. My original plan for the day involved the Cawsand ferry but, so far as I could tell, it had finished for the season and so I settled for a leisurely jaunt within the confines of Plymouth’s city limits.

XIV – Newhaven to Worthing

MY CUNNING plan for my fourteenth coastal walk was to walk from Newhaven to Shoreham on Saturday. Indeed this plan was so cunning it mutated to keep everyone guessing.

In truth, the weather forecast for Saturday was one of bucketing rain, which didn’t sound a bundle of laughs. The best day this week, according to the Met Office, was yesterday (Thursday). So yesterday I went.

VI – Westgate-on-Sea to Sandwich

LAST week, after getting home from my walk to Westgate-on-Sea, I sat down and kicked off my walking boots. Or so I thought.

As I looked at the sole I had kicked across the room and waggled my toes in the boot upper still on my foot, I thought to myself ‘time to buy some new boots’. I was impressed with my boots’ longevity though—they were old, battered, had missing eyelets and in some places were held together with two-part epoxy resin but they had lasted an amazing fifteen or so years.