On August 28 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, before a crowd of 250,000, Martin Luther King Jr, civil rights activist and Baptist minister, gave one of the most iconic speeches in American history. “I have a dream …..”

In early November 2025 Barbara also had a dream. “I have a dream ….. to re-walk the full South West Coast Path”. This was a much less iconic speech to an audience of just one. I was somewhat stunned and without thinking accepted the challenge and replied “I’m up for it”.

We had been vaguely thinking about walking the Camino Portuguese Inland Route having walked the Camino Portuguese Coastal Route in 2024. This would have been a mainly flat walk of about 280 – 300 kilometres and we could have done it fairly comfortably.

The South West Coast Path is in a different league. 1014kms from Minehead in Sommerset to Poole in Dorset and about 4 Mt Everests of climbing. A longer walk than any of our previous adventures:

2016 Camino Frances 800kms over 34 days
2017 Ireland 500kms over 23 days
2018 SWCP Westward Ho! to Plymouth 510kms over 30 days
2019 SWCP Minehead to Westward Ho! and Plymouth to Brixham                 280kms over 13 days
2023 SWCP Brixham to Poole 265kms over 15 days
2025 Camino Portuguese 300kms over 17 days.

Add to this the fact that we are now 10 years older than when we walked the Camino Frances.

Initially I think we were trying to call each other’s bluff but a seed had been sown and we started to think about it more seriously. In mid-November we decided to do walks on four consecutive days of over 20kms. This was not to see how fit we were but to see if our feet, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders etc were still up to doing reasonably long walks day after day. Amazingly at the end of this little test we felt good and strong and confident we could take on the big challenge.

Before we knew it we had made an enquiry with Macs Adventure and they were putting together a 63 night, 64 day itinerary for the full South West Coast Path. 54 days of walking with 8 “rest” days. A “rest” day built in about every seventh day. As we have walked every inch of the SWCP before, we have a different attitude this time. There are a couple of long days, 34 and 30kms, which are too much for us when they involve a lot of climbing. On these days, and also when the weather is atrocious, or we are just tired or injured, we will get the bus or a taxi for part or all of the day. We just want to enjoy ourselves and survive!

We also want to make our rest days, real “rest” days. In the past these days have often been more strenuous than our walking days. For example in Padstow we spent the day cycling the Camel Trail, in St Ives we spent the day at the Barbara Hepworth Museum and the Tate St Ives Gallery, at Marazion we climbed all over St Micheal’s Mount, at Charlestown we got the bus inland to the Eden Project, at Exmouth we got the train to Exeter to visit their magnificent cathedral, at Dartmouth we did a day excursion on river boat/train/ vintage railway, etc. This time our rest days are mainly in small towns or hamlets and hopefully we will be forced to just relax, have a coffee, go for a swim, and maybe write some better blog.

By the 11^th February we had paid Macs Adventure a hefty deposit so they would proceed with the detailed booking of 63 nights of accommodation and all the luggage transfers. Then things got a little bit complicated. On 28^th February just as we were about to make flight bookings from Wellington to Heathrow, Trump and Netanyahu launched their war against Iran. We usually go via the middle east, Dubai (on Emirates) or Doha (on Etihad) to get to Europe but flights through these places were immediately stopped due to the war. For the dates and times we wanted, flights through Singapore and Hong Kong quickly sold out. We had a preference not to go through China or India and definitely not through the USA. Eventually our travel agent secured us flights Wellington/Auckland/Vancouver/ Heathrow. The same returning in reverse. Of course due to the chaos in the airline industry the cost of flights had risen a couple of thousand dollars.

An essential requirement when travelling to most countries these days is an eTA, an Electronic Travel Authority. This is basically an electronic visa for the country you are visiting and you apply on line or on a phone app before you leave home. We applied for an UK eTA and a Canada eTA. One was required for Canada even though we were transiting for just a few hours. The UK eTA cost $38.64 each and the Canada eTA cost $ 8.94 each.

So now we are counting down the days. During the day it is very exciting and we can’t wait to get walking. In the middle of the night it seems intimidating and we wonder what on earth we have got ourselves into.

My next post will be our full itinerary.

PS recently King Charles III officially opened the England Coast Path. This is 2,700 miles all around the coast of England and the South West Coast Path forms 630 miles of it. There is an existing Wales Coast Path of 870 miles and a theoretical Scotland Coast Path of 6,330 miles. This is a total of 9,900 miles, or 15,840 kms, around Great Britain. If you averaged about 20 kms per day it would take 2 years with no rest days! In future Barbara can keep her dreams (nightmares!) to herself.