stepping_stones Archives - helpful mammal

CCXXI – Bettyhill to Melvich

I CRAWLED out of bed in the Bettyhill Hotel fearing the worst, weather-wise, as the forecast was for heavy showers. To my surprise and delight, however, I found blue skies and sunshine when I threw back my curtains. This was an excellent turn of events! I immediately resolved to wolf down my breakfast with unseemly haste and then get out on the road and do as much as possible while I still had this good weather.

CCV – Strathcarron to Applecross

AROUND the middle of April 2019, I found myself back in Wester Ross, ready to embark upon a seven-day trek from Strathcarron to Ullapool. This naturally required that I start in Strathcarron, which would have been easier had the Strathcarron Hotel had a vacancy. Alas, it did not. Plan B was to stay in Kyle of Lochalsh, knowing that I could catch the early morning train (on which I’d left the area at the end of my last trip) to whisk myself there at some awful, ungodly pre-breakfast hour. So that’s what I did.

CLXVIII – Carradale to Campbeltown

DAY Four of my May 2017 walking trip presented me with a choice. I had two options for walking from Carradale to Campbeltown: the coastal route down the B842 or a longer, meandering trek via the Kintyre Way. While both had their advantages, I’d already spent the previous day on the B-road. But Section 5 of the Kintyre Way could hardly be described as ‘coastal.’ Ah, decisions, decisions…

CIII – Llanfair PG to Malltraeth

IT WAS just before six in the morning when I returned to Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, having negotiated the cunning and secret railway challenge designed to prevent you from doing so:

Not only is the station saddled with the impressive (if contrived) name of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch but it is also a request stop, which means that the train will only stop to let you off if you can successfully tell the guard that that’s where you are going. It also helps if you can stop saying it before the train hurtles past.

LXXXVII – Newport to Cardigan

BETWEEN Newport and the Pembrokeshire–Ceredigion border lie some truly stunning cliffs with some quite unnerving cliff paths clinging to the top of them. This walk therefore threatened to test my head for heights and so it did. Mostly, I passed, although I admit to feeling unnerved in some places. It was worth it.

LXXXI – Milford Haven to Westdale Bay

I had a cunning plan to make the best possible use of Easter and its attendant four-day weekend by walking great distances along the Pembrokeshire coast. It was a good plan and I liked it, but the common cold virus had other ideas and decided to prove that it’s not only Martian tripod pilots that it can bring low if it wants.

I thus spent Easter feeling somewhat sorry for myself and occasionally wondering if I’d somehow stuffed a hagfish up my nose.

LXXII – Rhossili to Llanrhidian

WITH flood warnings in place for much of Wales and heavy rain predicted for most of the foreseeable future, I had almost resigned myself to postponing any future walks indefinitely. But when the Met Office predicted that last Thursday would be one clear day amid the ongoing deluge, I seized the opportunity with almost reckless abandon.

LXX – Swansea to Penmaen

THE THIRD day of September was the two-year anniversary of the first of these coast walks, when I walked from Gravesend to Strood. It seemed only right to celebrate this by doing some more walking, although this time I would be making my way from Swansea onto the Gower Peninsula.

XLVI – Sennen Cove to St Ives

WITH the January weather proving variable, my forty-second birthday saw me ambling gently along five miles or so of the Thames from London Bridge to Greenwich in the company of two good friends. This was entirely lovely. It also reawakened my desire to walk around the coast again.

Thus, a week later, I found myself dozing fitfully through the eight hour overnight bus journey from London to Penzance.

XLII – Falmouth to Porthallow

AS IT’S been three weeks since I got back from Cornwall and I’ve let a number of other things get in the way, I thought it was about time I found some to write up some more of that week.

So I did…