Personal

Five years, one thousand miles

Has it really been five years?

I remember well the random event that sparked my holiday in February 1999: the shelf in Waterstones that held the walking guides, and the arbitrary selection that took me to Pembrokeshire. Had I known then that it would lead to an obsession, would I have slotted the book back and dossed round the house for a week instead?

But I didn't. I started the Pembrokeshire Coast Path and in a Youth Hostel by a disused airfield, had a landmark conversation with the warden.

"It's a beautiful path," I said.

"It is. In fact, these days I've given up hillwalking," was his unexpected response. "I far prefer to stick to the coast."

We closed the conversation and parted. I shook my head. How could anyone limit themselves to the coast when there's so much of the country to walk? And yet today, one thousand miles of coastline later, I find myself asking the opposite question: why limit yourself to the centre of our island when you've not explored its extremities?

I don't know the warden's name, but I think it's fair to say that my coastwalking can be traced back to his comments.

Five years on then (and another thirty or so to go if I continue at this rate), I'd like to informally thank him. He's given me something constructive to do every weekend for half a decade, a seemingly endless supply of holidays and a reason to slowly ring the map-book in my car with purple annotations.