Brown's Ups 'n Downs

13/01/2025

Hi everyone, sadly it appears that our instagram account (ukcoastwalk) has been hacked. If you receive any suspicous requests from us on Instagram please ignore.

Cheers Antony & Sally

17/06/2024

FLASHBACK….!!!

Day 98 of Walking the British Coastline for RNLI and Cornwall Air Ambulance (24th August 2023)

Portpatrick to Corsewall Point

Summer arrives in the Rhins….!

It was a lovely morning as we set off just before 8am from Portpatrick. Ailsa had decided to join us for the first part of today’s walk as far as Killantringan Bay on the Southern Upland Way. It was nice to start the day on well defined paths and to have Ailsa as a guide. Antony was still suffering badly from stomach cramps so it was good to have the option of cutting the day short if needed. Uncle Dave drove off to Killatringham to rendezvous with us later.

It took us just over an hour to cover the 4 km from Portpatrick, past Black Head Lighthouse and eventually to meet up with Dave at the car park near the bay. We said goodbye to Dave and Ailsa and tried to make our way down onto the beach, this was harder than we imagined with no clear route available down through the rocks. It’s a shame that access to the beach isn’t easier, as it is a stunning beach.

For the remainder of the walk we couldn’t really find a good coastal path, so we decided to stick to the main road, which was the very quiet B738. This was a good thing as Antony did feel very ill as the heat of the day kicked in, at least we were able to take some time at the side of the road before pushing on to the end. However, the most worrying part of the day was when a couple of vicious dogs chased us along the road, they were behind a fence, but it looked barely high enough to keep them in, luckily we managed to get by before the dogs escaped.

The final part of the walk we did manage to get back onto the coast path, and Dave & Ailsa were waiting for us when we finally arrived at Corsewall Point Lighthouse.

Distance 25.1 km
Elevation 454 m
Time 5h 24m

To donate visit: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk
Also raising funds for Mind and parkrun UK

16/06/2024

FLASHBACK….!!!

Day 97 of Walking the British Coastline for RNLI and Cornwall Air Ambulance (23rd August 2023)

Port Logan to Portpatrick

Ailsa’s Den….!

Despite Antony not feeling well and still suffering with stomach cramps we decided to make an early start yet again. Dave & Ailsa dropped us off at Port Logan and we were underway by 7:45am.

The tide was out, so we were able to cut a little corner across Port Logan Bay. The highlight of today's walk came fairly early on, and this was a lovely beach den, which had been built many years ago by Ailsa, Aileen and Gordan. We spent some time at the den before trying to find the best route along the coast from here. It wasn’t obvious so we decided to scramble up the cliffs and on to the clifftops.

With the distance being much shorter today we had anticipated a much easier walk, but it was hard to find any clear path. We stumbled across several new pieces of infrastructure that have been built for the Rhins of Galloways Coast Path, but there was no clear signage or footpaths between any of the gates and steps. The walk took much longer than expected and we only found ourselves on a decent footpath right towards the end of the day at Portpatrick.

We had arrived at Portpatrick at 4pm and wanted to try and visit the RNLI Station, however nobody seemed to be in and Antony was now feeling extremely ill so we cut our losses and headed back to base.

Distance 25.9 km
Elevation 624 m
Time 6h 13m

We are also raising funds for Mind and parkrun UK to donate to any of charities visit: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk

01/06/2024

Chaos Radio Interview & Article:

Big thanks to Chaos Radio, they've now published the full interview and article from the final day of our epic challenge. It makes a nice change in this interview to get to listen to Denise Moth & Leigh and also to Bude RNLI Lifeboat fundraising chair Sue Kershaw

Here is the full interview: https://www.mixcloud.com/chaosradiouk/uk-coast-walk-antony-sally-brown-and-supporters-310524/

And for the article click here:
https://chaos.radio/st-blazey-gate-couple-walk-for-charity/

It's not too late to donate, the minimum donation is less than a cup of coffee at just £2 and every little really helps 😁
The donation links are all on www.linktr.ee/uncoastwalk

Best wishes, Antony & Sally

A couple from St Blazey Gate share their story of walking 6,000 miles raising money for Cornwall charities! CHAOS Radio tells us more...

28/05/2024

Listen to our interview with Chaos Radio shortly after we had completed our walk around the entire British Coastline.

Don't forget that we are still taking donations on: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk

https://www.mixcloud.com/chaosradiouk/uk-coast-walk-antony-and-sally-brown-270525/

A husband-and-wife duo from St Blazey Gate have concluded an epic year-long journey walking the entire coastline of mainland Britain. On Wednesday - the day before her 60th Birthday - Sally Brown and her partner Antony, arrived at the RNLI station in Bude after leaving there 374 days earlier; Sally....

25/05/2024

Good morning all..!!!!!!

As most of you will know the walk around the entire British coastline was completed on Wednesday, 22nd May at 4pm, arriving at Bude RNLI Lifeboat

To the best of our knowledge we are the oldest couple to complete the circuit of Britain as a continuous walk!

If you haven't done so already it would be great if you could donate to one of our fab charities, you can find all the links on www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk 😎😁

We will post up more details and photos from the final day once Sally Brown's birthday weekend is over. Also we will upload some of the missing days from the journey when got behind on social media! 🙄

Thanks for all of the support and donations received so far. Best wishes Antony and Sally 😀

22/05/2024

Day 355 of Walking the UK Coastline for RNLI and Cornwall Air Ambulance (21st May 2024)

Trebarwith Strand to Crackington Haven

The Penultimate Day….!

Last night we had parked at the Tintagel Brewery, which was a very peaceful location, so we managed to get a good night's sleep. We had to drive back down to Trebarwith Strand to start the day's walk. As we approached the bottom of the village we noticed that the doors to The Strand Cafe were open, so we popped in to see if they had any pasties left over from yesterday, luckily they had one cheese & onion pasty left, which Joey let us have for free. With lunch sorted we continued with the walk.

It was warm this morning but the early climbs up to the cliff tops seemed easy, despite having done a lot of climbing yesterday. This whole stretch of coast is quite rugged and generally the coastline is very rocky. There are far fewer sandy coves than the other side of the Camel Estuary. We arrived at Tintagel, the home of Arthurian Legend. We took a moment on a bench to do a bit of admin, and recognised a chap walking up the hill, it was Paul Harris, the self proclaimed “Warrior Walker”, we thought we had missed him as he was taking a few days rest when we passed him in Perranporth, so hadn’t expected to see him at Tintagel.

The meeting with Paul was one of numerous meetings on the path today. Several people stopped to ask if we are the couple walking the coast of Britain, and some of them were very well versed in our itinerary for the next two days. After leaving Tintagel we passed Bossiney Haven which is one of the most beautiful looking coves we have seen in the past year.

We eventually stopped at Boscastle for our ‘late’ morning break. We still needed to get something for dinner this evening so popped into the Boscastle Bakery, who kindly donated two pasties. We were tempted to eat them straight away, but had nothing else for this evening, so hid them in the bottom of our backpacks.

The final meeting of the day was with Steve from Germany, we chatted about the beauty of the Cornish Coast and why it attracts so many people from Germany. We had a lovely surprise later when we noticed that Steve had donated £50 to the RNLI.

We finally arrived at Crackington Haven after 5pm, a pretty late finish for us. We checked in to the Coombe Barton Inn, who kindly provided a room for our last night on this crazy little journey.

Distance 24.07 km
Elevation 1,158 m
Time 5h 55m

To donate visit: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk

20/05/2024

Day 354 of Walking the UK Coastline for RNLI and Cornwall Air Ambulance (20th May 2024)

Polzeath to Trebarwith Strand

Hot & Hilly….!

There isn’t much that we can say about today's walk really. We set off from the Valley Campsite at 8am this morning. Martin who runs the site refunded £30 for us to donate to the charities, which was a lovely gesture.

It was a warm and sunny morning as we made our way out of Polzeath and up to Pentire Point and The Rumps. The vista from this point is quite amazing as you can see all the way to Trevose head and across the entire Camel Estuary.

Beyond The Rumps the path is fairly good but there is a lot of undulation. There were masses of walkers coming the other way today, some of whom were already aware of our journey. Most of the oncomers looked pretty knackered , which given the terrain wasn’t surprising. We arrived at RNLI Port Isaac, bang on 1200 for the final RNLI station visit of the past year. Port Isaac is always pretty busy, partly due to its popularity with fans of the TV Show, Doc Martin.

After a celebration pint for Antony, we continued onwards to Trebarwith Strand. The walking seemed to become even more strenuous on the second part of today's walk as the heat kicked in and the water ran out. Trebarwith Strand was a welcome sight, but due to poor phone reception in the village we’ve decided not to stay here this evening. Instead we are parked in the yard of Tintagel Brewery, sadly we arrived about 10 minutes too late to say thank you to them for allowing us to park or for a chance to try any of their beers… oh well another time!

Distance 26.38 km
Elevation 1,291 m
Time 6h 11m

To donate visit: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk

19/05/2024

Day 353 of Walking the UK Coastline for RNLI and Cornwall Air Ambulance (19th May 2024)

Treyarnon to Polzeath

Just one more RNLI station to go….!

After our lovely walk today we now just have one RNLI Station left on the mainland coast to visit. The two stations visited today were RNLI Padstow and RNLI Rock. We delayed starting until 8am as we didn’t want to get to Padstow too early and also it was quite misty. Even when we left it was still misty and we struggled to work out exactly which direction the coast path went, we took things easily, not wanting to stumble over the edge of a cliff.

As we passed Treyarnon Bay and Constantine Bay the mist gradually started to melt away and the sun started to shine through. By the time we rounded Trevose head and had the RNLI station in sight, it had turned into a very nice morning. George was on hand to welcome us at the top of the station and take us down to meet the rest of the crew in the lift. Unfortunately the steps are currently not deemed safe, so the station is closed to the public, so we felt very privileged to be able to visit this beautiful station in the most picturesque setting.

After our stop we continued on our way to Padstow, which is some considerable distance from the station itself, which is situated close to the glorious Mother Ivey’s Bay. This was such an amazing stretch and we were so lucky to walk it in warm sunshine. Along the way we met up with Andy Hobkinson who has been arranging our RNLI visits for a few months now. It was nice to chill with him on the beach whilst we had our coffee, he got to see the “Wee Red One” in action!

After our break we made quick progress through Padstow and across the River Camel to Rock, for our second RNLI visit of the day. Again it was another lovely welcome meeting Stuart and his team. This was our penultimate visit, with the final station being Port Isaac which we will visit on Monday. The remainder of today's walk took us along the tranquil sandy beaches of the Camel estuary to popular surfing paradise of Polzeath.

Distance 24.96 km
Elevation 519 m
Time 5h 11m

To donate visit: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk

19/05/2024

Day 352 of Walking the UK Coastline for RNLI and Cornwall Air Ambulance (18th May 2024)

Porth to Treyarnon

The FINAL parkrun….!

We saved the best parkrun until last, the iconic Eden Project. It was a beautiful morning on the south coast of Cornwall, we’d parked up in Carclaze so didn’t have far to get to Eden Project. It was another surreal moment, as it certainly didn’t seem like just over a year ago that we were last here. Antony was inspired by the occasion and was off to a flying start down towards the Biomes. The heat eventually got to Antony and he couldn’t maintain the early pace, but still managed his best time of the entire walk 20:04.

We handed out a few leaflets after the parkrun, but needed to get back to Nancy in time for a Zoom interview with ITV West Country, but sadly this was cancelled so we made tracks for the North coast and the continuation of our walk from Porth.

Unfortunately a sea mist had blown in on the North Coast, so the forecast of sunny spells never actually materialised today, it was in fact quite chilly. This was a bit of a shame as this is one of our favourite stretches, from Porth, past Watergate Bay, Mawgan Porth, Bedruthan Steps, and finally on to Porthcothan. You could still see the beauty that this part of the coast offers, but the edge was slightly taken off by the weather. This has been a popular spot with our family for many years, with 100’s of hours spent on Porthcothan beach, building sea defences to beat the tide but always losing out in the end, just like King Canute!

This evening we have a pitch right by the edge of the coast path, courtesy of Trethias Farm Camping, the views would have been great, if it wasn’t so misty. Hopefully tomorrow will be clearer as we have our final ferry crossing from Padstow to Rock.

Distance 17.32 km
Elevation 487 m
Time 3h 41m

To donate visit: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk

17/05/2024

Day 351 of Walking the UK Coastline for and (17th May 2024)

St Agnes to Porth

Buzzing….!

What a difference a day makes, only 24 hours! Yesterday our post was a little downbeat but today we really bounced back! We got underway at 06:45 this morning as we needed to try and get across the Gannel, which is a tidal river, at least a couple of hours before high tide at 14:00. It was at least a 5 hour walk to get to the Gannel so we couldn’t hang around.

The weather was amazing today, warm and sunny from the get go. At our first cove, Trevallas Porth, a young lady asked about our RNLI shirts and was very enthused by our story, she put a smile on our faces. Today we passed many great sandy coves and beaches, the first of which was Perran Beach at Perranporth. We called in at Chapman & Sons butchers to say hello to Marianna who is the sister of Ellen who we met up in Scourie back on 10th November. Six months later, here we were being greeted by a complete stranger with an enormous hug!

The amazing beaches came thick and fast after our stop in Perranporth. Holywell Bay, Porth Joke, Crantock Beach, each one tempting us to stop, but we had to push on to the Gannel. We made it across just in time and then to our surprise found that the Fern Pitt café was open, we had heard that it could be closing down, but it was like an oasis today. After our coffee stop we rounded Pentire Head and were soon walking on the world famous surfing beach of Fistral. Not much surf today, but still a very popular spot. Our next stop, Towan Beach and the RNLI Station, where we had a fantastic reception from Anne-Marie and the team, a lovely cuppa and some biscuits followed and we got to meet Andy Hobkinson who has been doing a lot of the RNLI liaison for us.

We passed three more beaches, Great Western, Tolcarne and L***y Glaze, before arriving at our final beach of the day, Porth, where our support driver had just arrived to meet us. Sally did a quick interview with Radio Newquay and then we realised that we hadn’t contacted Cornwall Air Ambulance. The CAA are based just a few minutes from Porth at Newquay Airport so we arranged an impromptu visit. What an amazing reception the team gave us, they blew us away and inspired us to get the walk done and try and raise awareness of the fantastic job they do. Whilst at the CAA they received an emergency call, so we got to see the helicopter fly off, buzzing away, just like us, now buzzing after an amazing day.

Distance 31.22 km
Elevation 733 m
Time 6h 54m

To donate visit: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk

16/05/2024

Day 350 of Walking the UK Coastline for RNLI and (16th May 2024)

Gwithian to St Agnes

A slow start to the final week….!

We weren’t sure what we expected this week to feel like. The start of the final week of this massive journey that we’ve been on. It has pushed us both to the limit and well outside of our comfort zone. We’ve probably had more bad days than good days in the past year but through stubbornness, grit and determination we’ve kept on going. But right now we are both feeling very low and just want the whole thing over and done with.

The weather today was fantastic as was the walking. After all the crap days that we’ve been through we certainly feel like we’ve earnt days like today. In some ways it was very similar to the start of the walk one year ago, with summer vibes in the air. The main difference is that a year ago we were full of optimism for what the walk might become and now it is failing to deliver. The response to our walk here in Cornwall is underwhelming to say the least, which is a massive disappointment. We had hoped that the last three weeks would be like a lap of honour and a celebration, but right now it feels like a massive anti-climax.

We did at least manage to meet with a good number of the crew at RNLI St Agnes this evening and watched as they went out on their training exercise. It was nice to see these amazing volunteers in action.

Hopefully after a good night's sleep things will look better in the morning.

Distance 27.75 km
Elevation 737 m
Time 5h 57m

To donate visit: www.linktr.ee/ukcoastwalk