The South West Coast Path offers 630 miles of stunning coastal trekking, starting in Minehead and snaking around the great bottom-left sticky-out bit of the UK to Poole. Gapyear.com member Daniel White has just walked it all...

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The South West Coast Path Daniel White writes... 'My friends said I was mad when I told them my plans for this summer: thinking about it, they were probably right. You would have to be crazy to want to walk 554 miles, right? The whole trip took me 80 days (it should have been 44 if it wasn’t for some minor difficulties), during which I travelled across remote cliffs and deserted beaches that are rarely visited by anyone not on the trek. These areas are so remote that I saw few people and was forced to drink spring water so that I wouldn’t have to do massive detours. At one point I was even called in to help at a disaster zone. All this and I didn’t even leave southwest England... The South West Way is Britain’s longest trail, covering 630 miles of coastline. It starts in Minehead in Somerset, heads out to Land’s End, then follows the south coast to Poole in Dorset. I had already done 76 miles last summer and this summer I decided (as I was at a loose end) to do the other 554 miles. The expedition got off to a flying start when I got a bus ticket to Truro instead of Taunton. Luckily I rectified my mistake before it was too late, but having realised that I was so incompetent I couldn’t even reach the start point, I got slightly worried about my chances... However, things went very smoothly for the next three weeks and I covered the 270 miles to St Ives with very few problems. Unfortunately that was where my troubles started. I had decided not to take a tent on the trek for weight reasons. In fact, I was a bit obsessed with weight, even going so far as to saw half the handle off my toothbrush, this stupid idea - amongst others - having been suggested by an ex-SAS guy I met when walking in the Lake District last year. My lack of tent meant I had got into the bad habit of staying in B&Bs which had cost me a lot of money; I now had less than £550 left. I decided to combat the situation by purchasing a tent and stopping to work for a while at the next big town, which happened to be Penzance. During the next month there I had a great time. At one point I took a scenic helicopter flight over much of the coast I had walked, which was spectacular. The job I got was the most memorable part. The agency I was working for sent me down to help with the Boscastle flooding disaster. I had passed though the village not 20 days earlier and it was heartbreaking to see it in such devastation. Although I was enjoying my stay in Penzance I unfortunately didn’t make much money. I was forced to leave so I would get home before winter kicked in with less than £400... a lot less than I had when I got to Penzance. The next four weeks’ walking were a real struggle at times due to a lack of cash. Things were made worse when I hurt my ankle badly and was forced to stop for a few days to recover. This unfortunately screwed up the budget and on some days I only had £3 to spend - barely enough to get food! It was real rustic living, sleeping out all the time and washing myself and my clothes in rivers and streams. It was very basic but great fun. Amusingly I was quite often mistaken for a homeless vagrant, and several times had to reject people’s kind donations. Carrying the tent was tough - the path is very rugged in places and is extra difficult when you’ve got 17 kilos strapped to your back, especially when your boots and back are beginning to show the strain from the distance you’ve done. I had some memorable camping experiences, though, including an encounter with a copper who objected to my camping on a roadside verge. After a vast amount of begging and grovelling and pleas that ‘it’s common land’, ‘I'm not hurting anyone’ and ‘please mate, it’s late and I have nowhere else to go’, he laughed and said I could stay. I also saw some awesome scenery, especially around the Tintagel and Boscastle area, which I can truly say is some of the best I've ever seen, and I’ve seen some pretty spectacular stuff in my time. When I finally got to the end of my journey I felt an incredible sense of achievement and knew it was well worth all the work. Along the way quite a few people had said to me that they could do the same thing by car, but you don’t realise how remote these places are until you walk the path and most of the best places can only be reached by foot. I’ve travelled in a lot of countries but I think it’s a shame that so few people take time to explore the country they live in. After all, how can you compare other countries and cultures if you don’t know your own?' Click here >> to find out more about the South West Coast Path Click here >> for more UK info

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