Hiking 630 miles in one long thru-hike has its tough moments. Likewise when it comes to parenting a toddler. So what happens when you combine the two on a 65-day family hiking odyssey, complete with an uncharacteristic heatwave and entirely characteristic British rain? A good story happens. That’s what. And you can read all about it in this month’s issue of Notes from Outside.
Catherine
Editor, Notes from Outside
As Freya and I took our final, weary paces down to the harbor in Robin Hood’s Bay on 19th June 2021, neither of us thought it possible to walk a single step further. Wainwright’s Coast-to-Coast trail had taken us nearly three weeks, covering over 200 miles across some of the most difficult terrain in northern England. All with our seven-month-old daughter, Ira strapped to Freya’s chest, and three people’s worth of thru-hiking kit in my backpack. It had been a life-affirming experience, yet reaching the finish line was a welcome chance to rest (and regain sensation in our big toes). Fast forward two years and we were restless. It was time to don our backpacks and take Ira on another adventure.
At 630 miles, the South West Coast Path is the longest national trail in the United Kingdom. While most people take years to walk it in sections, a few hundred hardy souls thru-hike it every year, the majority taking seven to eight weeks. Because you’ll climb around four times the height of Everest, ultralight kit is advised. Thru-hiking with a two-and-a-half-year-old toddler is not for weight weenies though. Having doubled in weight since our Coast-to-Coast adventure, Ira alone weighed 12kg. When fully loaded with food and water, Freya and I had 25kg apiece on our shoulders.
One of the biggest battles on any major thru-hike is just reaching the start. Over the last year, Freya had fastidiously planned everything. What gear needed replacing, where we could resupply, which sections to watch out for. She’d even done a solo wild camp with Ira on Dartmoor. Meanwhile, I’d done nothing. Well, nothing to do with hiking anyway.
For the last year my life had revolved around building our new cabin home in Cornwall, re-establishing my business in a new location, and working through a backlog of customer projects. In a perverse way, the Coast Path was a chance to finally relax. Maybe this was why I felt confident leaving the start in Minehead, buoyed by the rush of excitement that only comes on the outset of a major trip like this. The boundless possibilities of the unknown adventure to come.
Nonetheless, by the time we set down at our first camp spot, even my unshakeable faith in us felt a little flimsy. Setting off in the tail-end of a windless heatwave, the close climate, shock of full bags, and the first taste of coastal hills had us a little shaken as we settled into our sleeping bags.
Freya and I shared a knowing glance at one another. Had we bitten off more than we could chew?
A nervous energy carried us through the first week until the persistent heatwave forced us to seek refuge at a Woolacombe campsite for a few days, both Freya and I reeling from heatstroke. Just 50 miles from our actual home, all we needed to do was put in one phone call and we could be back in our own bed. There was too much adventure ahead to quit. The path’s calling was too strong to back out of, even if it meant a few days of feeling uniquely isolated and vulnerable.
Turning onto the Atlantic coast at Hartland Quay towards the end of week two brought with it the winds of change. Suddenly, for the first time since the start, there was a proper breeze. Such relief. For a moment. After the hottest June ever in the UK, one of the wettest Julys on record was blowing in. Scorched for a fortnight, we were now regularly getting soaked and soon there would be another test on the horizon: from Hartland to our hometown of Bude, we were faced with probably the single hardest day on the walk. Freya’s research had warned us of this stretch and, thankfully, our trail legs were beginning to condition nicely. So too were Ira’s…
Until this point, she’d been quite content to be ferried around like Cleopatra. Now, however, she realized her boots were made for walking. Straight out of camp, the first three miles of this monster day took in a trio of brutal climbs and Ira walked almost all of them herself. A voice from the carrier would call, “Ira climb mountain!” at the base of each ascent. At this moment, it became abundantly clear that our daughter had subscribed wholeheartedly to this monumental physical challenge we were facing together. Despite the slow pace, and my chilly muscles, I felt the warm glow of pride at her steely determination.
The rugged sites of North Cornwall began to whirl by in the steady simplicity that only a thru-hike can bring. Constantly pounding on the base of the cliffs, the crashing Atlantic waves and the pounding of our footsteps beat a syncopated rhythm along this incredible path. When the sun shone, the water glimmered with an iridescence that made Freya and I wonder why you’d want to be anywhere else in the world. Camping on golden sands, washing in the saltwater, every day a new spectacular view from another towering granite cliff. If we were going to live in the moment, this was the moment to choose.
The weather, however, continued to blow curveballs. Just around the corner from Padstow, at Constantine Bay, Freya and I woke at 6am to a raging onshore gale collapsing the head end of our tent. We couldn’t help but laugh as I scrambled out and frantically pegged some haphazard guy ropes into the rocky soil. Ira, meanwhile, was out for the count. A week later, another battle between tent and tempest raged in St Ives. The poles seemed perilously close to collapse. Another storm might see their last stand. Still, any great thru-hike is driven by hope and, after a few days of scrambled emails, we managed to arrange for a new pole set to meet us in Falmouth on the South Coast.
Before we could get there though, we had to tackle some of the wildest sections of the entire trail, transitioning around the tip of the country and onto the more tropical southern shores. This was the section that both Freya and I had really been looking forward to, and boy oh boy, it did not disappoint. Watching the sun set behind Longships Lighthouse, our camp spot above Sennen Cove was the perfect sign-off to our time heading west. The next morning, we skipped through Land’s End (the mainland’s most westerly point) and, before we knew it, we were venturing onto the untouched wilds of the Lizard Peninsula, the mainland’s southernmost tip. Waters so clear it would make crystal blush. Bristling palm trees, giant gunnera, even a banana tree. Hidden coves and idyllic fishing harbors. This was the Cornwall of our dreams. From Falmouth, the remainder of southern Cornwall slipped by on fast-forward.
We were now more than a family of three. We were a well-oiled trail team.
Quicker, stronger, more organized. Ira was in her element, regularly walking two or three miles each day, yet still finding the energy to clamber across rocks, search for wildflowers, and invent new stories about her soft toy dragon (her one luxury from home).
Our pace meant we breezed across the border at the Tamar River and were swiftly back in Devon. Now my battle became psychological, not because I wanted a respite after 450 miles of trail but instead, because the end seemed nearer than ever, and I didn’t want to bring the curtain down on this incredible journey. Thankfully, as a qualified mental health nurse, Freya was more than capable of snapping me out of this funk. Approaching the sailing mecca of Salcombe, some of her ever-wise words helped me refocus and see the beauty in the current Devonian vistas. Such an intense time together may have periodically tested our relationship to the extreme but one virtue of thru-hiking with your partner is that no-one knows you better when you are low, and no one is better at bringing you back to the here and now.
Just a few miles further on, we were blown away by Dartmouth’s historic charm, spending most of the day lazing in cafés, eating ice cream and taking an impromptu steamboat ride up the River Dart. Possibly the most perfect day of the whole trip was signed off with a night on the secluded headland of Froward Point, the pine forest around us giving the camp spot a NorCal coast vibe.
The next morning, we woke to watch a pod of 16 dolphins – our first ever wild sighting of them – leaping gleefully through the glistening morning surf. Even now I struggle to truly capture that feeling in words. Maybe that’s the true joy of a thru-hike; certain moments are uniquely personal, their memories almost ethereal.
As we moved further east, the cliffs became softer, their reddish sandstone guiding us over the border into Dorset: the final county of coastline and our old homeland before the move to Cornwall. Now at peace with the immovable reality that our journey was ending, the familiar Jurassic Coast was a comforting embrace. Its formerly fearsome hills – which, years ago, we had walked relentlessly to prepare for our first thru-hike – seemed but mere bumps after 600 miles of physical and psychological conditioning.
Even so, we slowed our pace, savoring the final moments, allowing ourselves one last camp at the iconic Old Harry Rocks, just four miles from the trail’s terminus at the edge of Poole Harbour. Rain cover off, we fell asleep under a starry, cloudless sky. At 4am, I woke, raindrops falling on our faces. In one last, hilarious battle against the elements, I found myself almost completely naked, darting around the tent, attempting to get the outer layer on before we were all soaked. Back inside, Freya and I had to stifle our laughter; Ira, as in all the storms that had raged before, was fast asleep.
Parenting a toddler across a 65-day thru-hike wasn’t easy but she adapted almost seamlessly into this nomadic summer. And all parenting is hard, isn’t it? So, you might as well do it somewhere (and doing something) you love.
Words and photos by Josh Barnett
Josh Barnett is an avid thru-hiker, automotive engineer, and sometime adventure writer. As a family, Josh, Freya and Ira have thru-hiked nearly 1,000 miles on various adventures (and have even done a 37-mile trail in a single day, much to the distress of their feet and legs). Now living in their tiny cabin home in Cornwall, they’re currently awaiting a fourth member of their thru-hiking clan while planning further adventures both in the UK and further afield.