Its the winter in the UK and while its nice to get out for walks and cycle rides, I’m feeling a bit lost without a bigger travel project to immerse myself into. So I’m going to start a new challenge, which also has the benefits of fitting into at a concept of a Grand Plan.

My plan is to start walking the Coast Path. Now I know “walking the Coast Path” sounds a bit open ended and a gargantuan project. However, it is big enough to keep me occupied and further thinking meant I could break it into smaller bite size pieces without committing to the whole thing. My plan is to, at least initially, start it in the way I tackled the Greenwich Meridian Trail (GMT). I will start nearer to home with day trips, and then approch longer sections as mini holidays. The way I’ve broken it down is to split it up by counties, which creates nice bite sized bits.

I’ll start in East Sussex, in Rye. Its the furthest county boundary that is (relativity) easily reachable by train (its still nearly 3 hours away). Starting there brings the subsequent stages nearer to home, it I walk to the west. This should help with reducing travel time and available daylight if I tackle them during the winter.

If I break it into counties, my initial planning shows some nice achievable targets.

• East Sussex – Rye to Southwick – 100km (4 days)
• West Sussex – Southwick to Emsworth – 125km (5 days)
• Hampshire – Emsworth to Highcliffe – 170km (6 days)
• Isle of Wight – 120km (5 days)

Most of this can be walked as day trips (although not the Isle of Wight), with just a few overnight stays needed. I think this is a nice starting point for an ongoing project. If I can knock off one or two sections each week it will give me a target for the next few months, with some bigger trips in the spring/summer. The big thing is it is not too committing. It would be easy to say I want to walk the whole UK coast! This is a great article about one persons trip – 7,000 miles (11,000km) in 450 days, over 5 years. I’m not quite ready for that.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/oct/19/i-walked-the-perimeter-coast-of-britain-photo-essay

That said, it does join up quite nicely to some much bigger walks if I wanted. I’m not going to be too precious about doing everything in order, although I think that I should tackle each county with some semblence of a plan.

With regard to coming up with something that is too committing, It is very easy to get carried away with wild plans, which in reality could be years of walking. For example ,out of my uncontrolled brain trying to find paths I would like to walk, from Highcliff, in Hampshire, its only a one day walk to South Haven Point. This is at the western side of the Sandbanks Ferry, to Swanage, and is the start of the South West Coast Path. This is 1,000km path all the way around Lands End to Minehead in North Somerset. From there, its a few days of walking up to Chepstow for the start of Offa’s Dyke, the 280km walk between England and Wales. Then you could head up to the 110km Cumbria Way, across the Lake District, which meets the 135km Hadrian’s Wall Path. From Newcastle, it would be nice to head south on the North East Coast Path to Hull. As I’ve already walked to Hull on the GMT, I can avoid the flatlands of the Linconshire Fens, and therefore pickup the King Charles III England Costal Path at Greenwich and head around the Kent coast back to Rye. This whole paragraph is why I need a smaller target, of four days walking from Rye to (essentially) Brighton, otherwise my brain explodes!

However, I would be more than happy to tackle any of the bits above. Both Hadrian’s Wall and Offas Dyke look like great walks, and surely any parts of the South West Coast Path would be excellent. I’ll make seperate plans for those!

So, if anyone fancies a walk, any time, let me know!