10 Months Hiking on the South West Coast Path, UK

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Back in January of this year, I wrote a blog post about a hike I did on the coastal path near to my home in Devon, UK, on New Year’s Day. That walk set my intentions for 2019 – that of hiking, exploring my local area and generally getting outdoors a whole lot more. In that same blog post, I wrote that I would do a different hike every month and blog about it…

And now here we are 10 months later – I haven’t written a single blog post about hiking since January (anyone else say they’ll do something, and then never actually do it? Or is it just me!?) But just because I haven’t written about it, doesn’t mean I haven’t actually been hiking. In fact, I’ve done quite a bit.

Following my New Year’s Day walk, I started thinking about ways I could motivate myself to get out and walk more without having to spend a lot of money. I really didn’t want this to be another failed resolution! So, by March I had decided to make it a goal to walk the entire South West Coast Path within three years.

Now, I know three years sounds like a long time, but the South West Coast Path is 630 miles long and, unfortunately, I’m not able to take two months off work to walk the entire trail in one go. So, a more long-term solution was required.

Averaging a minimum of 15 miles a day (sometimes more), I worked out that I’d need about 42 days to complete the trail. Over three years, that worked out at only 14 days a year – just over one day each month.

Since April, I’ve been trying to cram in as many days walking as I can. Due to a busy, jam-packed schedule over the summer, this proved to be difficult. But I’ve found that booking out a weekend in advance helps me commit.

Just as a side note here, I’ll add that I had already hiked a couple sections of the coast path in close proximity to my home in Devon prior to January of this year, so will be counting these stretches in my total for the year. This covered off Seaton to Branscombe and Sidmouth to Budleigh Salterton.

So, if I’ve been hiking, why haven’t I written about it like I promised? Well, partly because I haven’t had the time (terrible excuse, I know), partly because I wasn’t sure if anyone was actually interested, but mostly because there’s already a ton of resources detailing every section of the South West Coast Path and I wasn’t sure what value I could add by contributing one more.

So, rather than writing a blog post to cover each stretch of the trail, I thought I’d do a summary post every few months to let you know how I’m getting on. Here’s the first.

Branscombe to Sidmouth – 6 miles

This was the hike that kicked off my South West Coast Path ‘expedition’ on New Year’s Day and you can read about it here. At this point, walking 14 miles in one day felt like a huge achievement. This is one of my favourite stretches of coastline because it’s so beautiful, but also quite gruelling. Several steep ascents mean it’s a tough one on the legs but the views along the Jurassic Coast more than make up for it.

West Bay to Seaton – 17.2 miles

In April, I pushed myself a little further than I’d ever walked and managed to hike 18.5 miles in one day – which I was really pleased with, especially as this stretch of the South West Coast Path is one hill after another.

Again, this is a beautiful stretch that is worth the effort it takes to climb the hills and is actually one of my favourite walks to date. Starting in Dorset’s West Bay, you hike along the coast through Eype, Seatown (not to be confused with Seaton), Golden Cap (which at 191 metres is the highest point on the south coast of Britain!), Charmouth, Lyme Regis and finally Seaton.

West Bay to West Bexington – 5.6 miles

This was most definitely my least favourite walk of all the hikes I’ve done this year. The scenery was substandard for most of the way and a large section of the South West Coast Path follows a long stretch of shingle beach which is difficult to walk on, although it is mostly flat so an easy one in that sense. There’s one lovely cafe along the way but aside from this nowhere to stop for food, apart from one restaurant in West Bexington which was exorbitantly priced! I definitely won’t be walking this stretch again in a hurry.

Isle of Portland Circuit – 13 miles

Walking the South West Coast Path on the Isle of Portland circuit was an interesting day! We’d planned to spend the day hiking and booked it out of our calendar, only to see a huge storm roll in. Fortunately, the weather stayed dry on the Saturday, so we set out for Portland determined not to give in. But while the weather was dry, the winds were strong and walking in such crazy, strong winds was exhausting, although exhilarating nonetheless.

We hiked along the rugged west coast to Portland Bill where we stopped at the cafe for a bite to eat before making our way back to the car along the less-rugged but equally as beautiful east coast. Fortunately, the east coast was a lot more sheltered and a lot less windy and the sun even came out to say hello towards the end of the walk.

The isle of Portland was an interesting place – while the coastline was rugged and beautiful, inland the island is bland and a bit strange in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on with large housing estates and a huge prison. I’d say this walk is medium difficulty as it’s mostly flat with two or three very steep climbs. Just choose a day without gale force winds!

Exmouth to Budleigh Salterton – 5.4 miles

This is a really beautiful stretch of coastline that I walked with my parents on the August bank holiday Monday. The walk between Exmouth and Budleigh is a fairly flat one with only a couple short hills, so is a nice easy one to complete if you’re not much of a walker. We walked from Exmouth to Budleigh Salterton and back and really enjoyed the views and sunshine that day before stopping for a beach BBQ on Exmouth on the way back!

Dawlish to Paignton – 24.3 miles

The coast path from Dawlish to Paignton is the longest walk I’ve done to date and, so far, the only walk I’ve done alone. I was nervous to walk so far on my own but I absolutely loved it. The time alone, the time to think, the challenge of going it alone and the fact that the weather was glorious all contributed to one of my favourite walks.

The hike from Dawlish to Teignmouth was really enjoyable with beautiful views along the coast but after Teignmouth the walk led mostly through trees and dense wooded areas until reaching Babbacombe. By Babbacombe, 14 miles in, my legs were aching like crazy so I stopped for 90 minutes and chomped down on a burger and chips before heading off again for the final 10 miles.

The last 10 miles between Babbacombe and Paignton was absolutely beautiful. Honestly, the coastline along this stretch was stunning, not to mention the coves and turquoise water which was not dissimilar to the Mediterranean. I’ll definitely be making an effort to hike this part of the trail again in the future.

Paignton to Kingswear – 18.5 miles

The most recent completed stretch, the coast path between Paignton and Kingswear, presented more epic vistas one after the other. The first 7 miles from Paignton to Brixham and beyond I found to be fairly mediocre, with the highlight of this stretch being the cute little cafe just before you reach Brixham where we spotted a large grey seal frollicking in the water while we enjoyed a coffee. However, after Berry Head, the coastline reached jaw-dropping peaks and breathtaking bays.

The only issue we found on this hike was the complete lack of facilities for the last 10 miles, which presented a problem due to the fact we’d banked on there being at least a couple cafes on route and, as such, hadn’t taken any food with us. Basically, we were unprepared and winging it and it was a lesson learned the hard way. For all future hikes, I’ll make sure to plan lunch stops ahead or take food with us should there be no where to stop en route.

So that’s it so far – in the last 10 months, I’ve walked 90 miles. Add on to that the 10.8 miles I had already walked prior to January, it brings a grand total of 100.8 miles, which actually isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things and means I need to crack on between now and March if I’m going to stay on track to walk the entire coast path in the next three years.

The next scheduled walk will be on 16 and 17 November, which will be my first multi-day hike. So, I’ll keep you posted on how that goes and provide an update after the next series of hikes.

Until then, happy walking!

Are you walking the South West Coast Path? I’d love to hear about your plans in the comments and any stretches of the coast path you’ve enjoyed so far.