Tim Newing

Five miles a pint! Tim Newing

Other South West Coast Path walkers usually seem to start, rather sensibly, at the beginning, progress to the middle and finish at the end. Often the challenge seems to be tackled in one 'hit', which is fine if you can spare the eight weeks needed to do it that way. But our story is not like that. Snatching time off from work when we could, the sections of path we attempted depended upon the availability of out of season public transport. Wainwright's Coast to Coast walk, it's Alternative cousin and our own Hare-Brained Hike were duly conquered, but the "Path" still resisted. Whatever the terrain, whatever the weather, the presence of 'killer steps' or otherwise and regardless of whether or not we stopped at lunchtime, we always seemed to average two miles per hour over each trip. And as we went, we recorded both our adventures and our 'fuel' economy...