Status of the trip as of Jul 13th 2017:
After pouring over maps and guide books, we had an outline of next summer’s walk: 63 days to cover the 630 miles, with average 12 daily miles and plenty of rest days.
Then, luckily, our daughter happened to mention that the college she is most likely to attend next year starts in mid-August. WHAT?!? We were expecting late September.
Our desire to be at least adequate parents demands that we attend her high school graduation AND transport her to college, which leaves us too little time in between to do the full walk. So, alas, the new plan: Minehead to Plymouth in 41 days (still with plenty of rest days). We’ll have to do the Plymouth->Poole section another year.
One upside to this: we no longer feel the need to be purists. We were resisting skipping over less interesting parts, but now I’m willing to use buses strategically here and there.
Status of the trip as of Sep 1st 2017:
Ha! I wrote the earlier parts of this post before finding out that our daughter’s high school graduation would also be 3 days later than we had expected. And before finding out that Dave wasn’t sold on walking 40 days in one go around a coastline anyway.
So, the trip got further altered.
Now we are walking Crackington Haven to Plymouth, which is basically most of the coast of Cornwall. (We originally planned to start in Bude, which would then truly have been all of Cornwall, but the timing wasn’t going to work on that.) The Langfords will join us for the last 2 weeks.
And then, purest insanity, after a week’s rest we’re going to France to do the 100 miles Tour du Mont Blanc.