Two Go Walking The Walk
From Cancer to Coast path
Saturday May 6th 2006 was the day I pulled on my boots, put the path beneath my feet, the sea on my right and set off to fulfil my dream. My dream to attempt to walk the 630miles along the South West Coastpath from Minehead, North Somerset to Poole in Dorset, was really going to come true.
My walking partner, Emma Williams, was equally excited and as we took our first steps away from the town and up North Hill we had silly grins of achievement at taking those steps. If nothing else, we had made a start and in doing so, fulfilled our first objective. It was a glorious day; we had a grand send off from old friends, Sue and David and were accompanied for a few days by Paul, John’s son whose engaged to Emma, and has been running this great blog sight, and John; my incredibly supportive husband.
It was in 1989 that I first put on a rucksack and walked with John from St Ives to Penzance. We camped and it was Easter but from that first step I was bitten by the coastpath-walking bug. I loved the sense of being self contained, away from the rest of the world and close to nature. Put together with the natural forces of the sea and the weather walking the coastpath made me feel exhilarated, strong and positive.
Taking one step and one day at a time is a bit like knitting, building with bricks, being pregnant or receiving chemotherapy for cancer. Keep those steps happening steadily, constantly and with a positive mind. The scarf will be completed, the wall will be built, the baby will be born and treatment will come to an end. There may be more treatment to be completed but there will also be more babies born. There will be highs and lows, tiredness, fatigue and fear but one step more may just be what’s needed to see something beautiful like a bee orchid nestling in the grass beside the path, a smile from someone walking towards you or even a break in the clouds and a sign that the weather will improve.
We laughed so much on our walk. Emma has a wonderful sense of humour and we both turned out to have natures that gained energy from adversity.
We laughed a lot during May in North Devon and Cornwall, when we had atrocious weather which coincided with the most severe walking conditions where we were ascending great flights of steps to summit 500 feet cliffs and then descending almost immediately to struggle down slippery gravel to reach the bottom of the next valley. It all seemed so ridiculous that every time when we thought we’d conquered the last climb, along would come another. But, as we said to each other on many occasions “We’re doing it!”
In fact for me that was the best part of the walk.
The benefit of the these weeks, when gale force winds picked us up off our feet and dumped us in gorse bushes, was that, nothing could have been worse so, even when we were exhausted by the heat later on in June, we were confident that we could climb Golden Cap, the highest peak on the south coast of England at 190 metres “We can do that” was often heard.
In 1995 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I recovered well after a lumpectomy and treatment with chemo and radiotherapy. It was a shock therefore to find that in July 2004 a mammogram showed up that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. More treatment, this time more aggressive, meant recovery took a while but my plans for the walk kept me looking forward and, following my three monthly check-up at the beginning of April 2006, we set the date to fulfil our dreams.
John and the rest of the family backed me totally and when I found the perfect partner for the walk they were confident that we would be able to do it.
Emma had agreed at Christmas that, all going well with my health, she would join me. I was thrilled as I felt that she would commit completely.
We made a good walking team. We had practiced walking together beforehand and discovered that we walked at about the same pace, except that we had different methods of going up hills. Emma would be able to steadily go on up until she reached the summit whereas, maybe because at 60 I was twice her age, I developed a system of counting my steps at 20 at a time I would achieve 20 steps and, if I felt I could, I would do 20 more; if not I would stop and have a look at how far I had come and the start off again. I would have enough breath to walk straight on with her. It seemed to work but I really would have liked to have found it easier, but it never did get any better. I was however encouraged to hear the Paula Radcliff employs the same counting method!
We walked ourselves fit and once over the soreness from blisters and discovering the best form of pain killers when Emma hurt her knee and, later on, for when I strained my back; we were fit and healthy and woke at our various and varied bed and breakfast accommodation every morning ready to walk again.
We booked most of our 56 different b/b s before we left. It was so good to know that we would have a bed at the end of our long days walking. We averaged 12-13 miles per day and we walked for 53 days and had 3 days off.
Thanks to everyone who has supported us we have raised money for Cancer Research Uk. The amount as of middle July 2006 standing at over £7000-00
We finished on July 1st at South Haven Point, Studland, near Poole. We had a wonderful welcoming party with Champaign, a big congratulations banner and a sun lounger for me to sit in! As we walked in, there was a group of four girls who cheered us in. When I later went to thank them one of them asked about the walk. On my response she declared, “I’m going to do that too!” I believe she will and that was what it was all about for us. Inspire, if you can. Fulfil your dream, however small even if it just to smile today.
N.B. If you want to see how our days were, log on to
www.twogowalking.blogspot.com If you want to hear more Dart Valley U3A,Flavel, Dartmouth, Thursday November 9th Monthly meeting I will be giving my talk on the walk.
