South West Coast Path Walk

On March 24th 2022, Alex Schellenberg and Lucy O’Flaherty started on the first stage of their 630 mile walk of the South West Coast Path from Minehead on the North Coast of Somerset to Poole in Dorset. They aim to complete the walk by October.

We are walking in memory of Martin and in aid of the Martin Schellenberg Music Trust.

At the time of writing (26/06/22) we have completed 224 miles to Zennor, approximately 12 miles from Landsend. We should have completed 236 miles by now but were unable to do Porlock Weir to Lynton back in March due to fallen trees on the path.. we will be returning to walk that stretch before we finish!

In March we walked for 7 days from Minehead to Westward Ho! In April 7 days from Westward Ho! to Padstow, and this month (June) we walked for 7 days from Padstow to Zennor.

We start again on 13th July to walk for 11days from Zennor to somewhere near St Austell.

At each stage we rent a cottage, equidistant as much as possible, from each day's walk, and use our 2 cars to drive to each end of the walk. We are now looking into taking advantage of the coastal bus service that seems to be fairly reliable, which means we would only need to take one car each day.

Each section of the path is graded by the South West Coast Path Association as ‘easy’ ‘moderate’, ‘strenuous’, ‘severe’ or as a combination. The ‘severes’ that we have done have been just that, with extremely steep and rocky descents and ascents or ‘footpaths’ full of huge rocks and boulders!

But the incredible views more than make up for the pain..most of the time! The stunning colours of the sea sometimes many metres below us; the crashing waves; beautiful sandy beaches; wild flowers; interesting insects and many different birds.. not to mention the lovely fellow walkers we meet along the way, all happy to chat and tell their stories of why they are walking, how far they’re going and where they are staying with quite a few young folk with enormous backpacks for wild camping! All these things make the walks even more special and rewarding.

We hope that the accompanying photos give a small insight into our adventure so far.

From July I will be blogging directly on this website if you would like to follow us.

We would be extremely grateful for any donations in sponsorship that you would like to give. You can use the QR code that is included with the photographs or transfer funds direct using the following bank details:

The Martin Schellenberg Music Trust

Sort: 30-90-90 Account number: 42645968

Thank you so much

Alex & Lucy

For further information please email schellenbergmusictrust@gmail.com

or phone Alex on 01935 509510