a coast path walk
Sometimes my walks on the coast path are utilitarian and are just doing the job of 'walking the dog'. Like the misty, can't see much days, cold and wet days, howling wind days.
But not often.
We live not far from the coast of north Cornwall. It takes me 10 minutes to drive to a little known spot near some access paths to park and leave the car, even in the height of the population-swelling summer tourist madness.
I have to drive there really. I'd prefer NOT to, but it is far enough away to mean that just walking there would mean not actually walking the coast path—or walking much more that day for me or Gwynnik.
In our defence, the car is a hybrid, which gets us there and back on the electric power only, with no emissions, so the environmental impact is not too bad hopefully.
Once there, we can choose a route based on how good on my feet I am that day. Because of MS, my feeling and strength—and confidence—in my legs and balance is variable. I walk with a stick normally anyway, but on a good day I can get up to about 3k before things start going extra wobbly. On a very good day (and when my head is clear and determined) I can break through that. I deal with the wobbly better, and can just stubbornly keep going.
I'll pay for it later though, generally with a need to recover for the rest of the day, if not through the next one as well.
I haven't done the full loop around our favourite walk for some time now. Some health problems, on top of the MS, have been affecting my heart and breathing—I soon get uncomfortable and short of breath on any steeper uphills, so I've been shying away from it.
But today was warm and bright, not hot, and I felt relatively strong. What was the worst that could happen?
Well, OK, heart condition, short of breath, hills, cliff edges, wobbly... best not to think about that too much really.
I decided after we were about a kilometre in that the day deserved to be enjoyed properly, so we did do the full 6k circuit, taking in some steep ups and downs, rather than any of the shorter and quicker 'there and back' options.
And it was glorious up there. Butterflies in hundreds in the lanes and hedgerows behind the coast, seals basking in the coves, kestrels hovering as they hunted above the cliff edges, the accompaniment of gulls calling and soaring, the sound of the sea far below.
And I'm here to write about it.
So that's good.
Written by a real person who completely ignores red wavy underlining and uses perfectly legitimate brand new words that just haven't made it to a dictionary yet.
Post Link: https://skryblans.com/a-coast-path-walk
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