The walk finished on November 30th 2018 but I have decided to leave the website up so that any future coast walkers, or anyone interested can read through all the routes. If you walk any parts, or even the whole thing please do put comments under the specific days.
The plan was to walk around the whole of the British coastline in 2018. That was 6100 miles according to my planned route, and would I reckon take approximately 48 weeks. As the reaction from one friend I told about this was ‘that should be fun, and lucky Britain is a small island’, for scale as a crow flies the distance from London to Tokyo is 5950 miles! The walk was completed in 2018, I finished on the exact day I jokingly said i would finish at the beginning 333 days after setting off and the total distance was 6127 miles.
The aim was to walk an average of 120/125 miles a week, walking 6 days each week and having one rest day. The rest day being both to recuperate my body, allow me to keep my blog up to date and enable planning for the subsequent week.
I carried camping equipment with me and the majority of the time I stayed under canvas, whether this be on a campsite, with permission on private land or wild camping. Other accommodation I used included;
Walking hostels
Bothies in Scotland
Kind offers from friends and strangers
Reason for walking...
Unfortunately since December 2013 my life had been significantly changed with the onset of my mental health issues. I went from being a relatively happy/positive person, in a job I liked (Bridge Structural Engineer), in a house I liked and with enough friends. To being an unhappy/negative person, having to quit my job, being essentially homeless at points and feeling completely isolated from the world, seemingly with no trigger and for no reason. It drove me to the very edge and occasionally almost beyond.
In 2017 I had been outwardly in a slightly better place, in steady accommodation, not having many manic moments, managing to get out and see friends, but unfortunately I was still too scared to try and get certain aspects back to normal and still felt very lonely/isolated amongst other things, and thus still had a way to go.
I set myself this challenge for two reasons. Firstly a selfish one, being active is one of the few things that definitely did help my mental health (even if at times it was hard to get out) so setting myself this challenge definitely made me get out and about, be active and thus improve my physical wellbeing as well as my mental health. Secondly unfortunately I had very bad experiences with the NHS mental health services, which actually made my mental health worse. The Mental Health Foundation work in many areas including trying to influence policy and it is only with organisations like this that the changes required to the treatment of people with mental health can improve, so I was really excited to support them with the fundraising, and in total just shy of £20,000 including gift aid was raised.
I was extremely grateful for all donations, & help with the challenge. It all helped towards my fundraising target, helped keep me motivated during the walk and more importantly helped an organisation that does a lot of good.
The walk was amazing and though I still have mental health issues it allowed me to get my life back on track.