COAST OF BRITAIN
James Lloyd is one of a small but growing number of people to have walked the entire coast of our island kingdom, solo. The lone explorer may be one of our most enduring cultural motifs; but, as James explains, the reality of a year-long walk on his own was both more daunting and less lonesome than he expected
AT THE BEGINNING of October 2022, I set out to hike the edge of Great Britain alone. On my way, people often asked me: do I get lonely, and how do I cope with that? They often told me they dreamed of going on a big walk themselves but were afraid of being alone.
The idea to walk the mainland coast came after hiking around Anglesey years earlier. Looking on Google Maps for other long walks, I zoomed out and out and out from Anglesey until it was dwarfed by the mainland. I grew up on the mainland yet knew nothing about its coastline, and what better way to experience it as I had done Anglesey – in one continuous effort on foot.
It would free up time to focus on the things I loved: writing, drawing and raising money for charity.
As a culture we are obsessed with going alone into nature, evidenced by the immense popularity of solo nature stories. There’s something so satisfying and seemingly ‘natural’ about a lone wanderer moving competently and quietly through a landscape accompanied by the rush of rivers and wind, birdsong in the trees, the crackle and sizzle of a fire. And, all the while, a quiet and calm that sometimes seem to accompany an absence of other people, with their troublesome needs and wishes!
It’s easy to understand why it’s such a potent storyline. We live mostly in urban areas and are often overwhelmed with stimulation and demands on our time and energy. We depend on a plethora of services and exchange work for money to access it all. It can feel claustrophobic. Perhaps we fantasise about having space and tranquillity, in the same way we fantasise about food when we’re hungry. We need solitude and independence to nourish ourselves but are afraid of being alone.
INTERNAL JOURNEY
Surely my notion to walk the entire coast was hare-brained? Was I running away from a bad breakup or a mortgage that made me feel trapped in a world I disliked? The thought of striding along white cliffs or traversing the Scottish wilds gave me a swirling feeling of awe and excitement in my chest. I would later come to understand that feeling as intuition, but at the start I didn’t trust it. I was crippled by expectations of who I should be, which left little time for doing the things I enjoyed. This manifested in a chronic IT band injury that just wouldn’t ease off. I felt worthless, depressed and anxious as a result. Suicidal thoughts scared me into realising I had to change.
I began to priori
