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Total raised so far

103%

£4,150.19 of £4,000 target +£773.00 Gift Aid See breakdown

Recent donations

1 year ago

Caroline Gooch

£100.00

+ £25.00 Gift Aid

Well done Rach and Mark, stunning job, and thank you so much for having me along for a day, it was great fun x

1 year ago

Pete & Pauline

£50.00

+ £12.50 Gift Aid

1 year ago

Anonymous

£40.00

Well done guys, great stuff x

1 year ago

Penny

£10.00

+ £2.50 Gift Aid

Congratulations Rachel and Mark. A great achievement!

1 year ago

Anonymous

£50.00

+ £12.50 Gift Aid

well done Rachel and Mark! Wonderful trip

1 year ago

Auntie Julie

£30.00

Well done to you both

1 year ago

Skyloom

£10.00

+ £2.50 Gift Aid

Well done - amazing achievement.

1 year ago

Anonymous

£19.19

Nice to meet you over Swanage brekkie. Well done. Time to put your feet up ;-)

1 year ago

Annette Lilley

£10.00

+ £2.50 Gift Aid

Congratulations both of you! Great achievement and a great cause

1 year ago

John & Kim

£20.00

+ £5.00 Gift Aid

Well done - you made it!

Rach & Mark - SouthWest630

Event dates: 23rd April 2022 – 8th July 2022

Rachel Kirk & Mark Howkins are raising money for Youth Adventure Trust and The Royal British Legion

Our story

We are attempting to walk all 630 miles of the South West Coast Path. Starting at Minehead in Somerset, our route follows the coast of North Devon, Cornwall, South Devon, and finally ends up at Poole Harbour in Dorset. We plan to start in April and walk this all in one go. Carrying our gear. Probably slowly!

We would like to use this challenge as an opportunity to raise funds for two chosen charities: The Royal British Legion and The Youth Adventure Trust. If you would like to show your support to us, and to the individuals and families these charities assist please make a donation via this page. Your help is much appreciated.


Thank you for checking out our page. Making a donation is fast, easy and secure thanks to Give as you Live Donate. They'll take your donation and pass it onto Youth Adventure Trust and The Royal British Legion.

Our updates

1 year ago

If you are in Bristol on 6th October come and see us at the Square Club where we will be doing a talk about our walk! Tickets available at explorersconnect.com and part of the proceeds go to charity. It's an informal event in a bar with an opportunity to catch up over a drink afterwards.
Some people said to keep in touch but I can't get contact info from giveasyoulive so come see us jn Bristol on 6th October at our talk instead!
Would be great to see you there!
Thanks!
Ravh & Mark

1 year ago

Wow. Well mission completed and a fundraising total of £4,050 + £748 in Gift Aid. You guys rock! Mark, Myself, The Youth Adventure Trust and the Royal British Legion say a huge thank you so much for your support! Give as you live doesn't give me access to your emails, so I hope this message does get seen by those of you are n not connected to me via Facebook If you do want to get in touch directly find me on FB under my name Rachel Kirk... I'm the one with the pirate photo of me and Mark.

Thank you again to everyone for your generosity, interest in our adventures and support along the way.

Rach & Mark

1 year ago

SW630 Day 74 OUR LAST DAY!!!
Swanage to South Haven Point

AND YIPPPEEE ....We made it to the end!!🤩👍

We awoke early from our wild camp on Peveril Point and quickly packed up and went off to find breaky and toilets. Gotta love a toilet!

Fitted in a swim in Swanage bay before breaky at a beach cafe and then started our walk up towards Old Harry's Rocks.

Only one hill today, and only about 8 miles, so easy peasy by coast path standards, and we had time for stoppages, which was a good job as we had alot of stoppages! First stop being the swim and breaky of course... then a choccie bar supplies stop...then drone flying at Old Harry's Rocks...then cider at the pub...ice cream at a beach cafe... and before we even left the cafe we basically stopped again for Mark to get chips!

Eventually having seen the rocks and made it through the obstacle course of refreshment opportunities (where were they yesterday when I had just 2 satsumas for lunch?!)...we were finally on the last leg: the beach towards the finish point!

There was however more obstacle to overcome...the nudist beach !! We knew it was coming but we weren't quite ready for how many people would be on it! Yikes! We didn't know where to look... 😱 😆 ! As most of the people walking along the beach towards us were completely starkers Mark even halted his usual 'chat with everyone you meet' approach, which did admittedly speed us up and make up for some of the snacks stoppage time!

Premier Support Crew Mum & Dad Kirk and Lou and Nat Yat from Youth Adventure Trust were there to meet us when we reached the official end of path. Cue lengthy photo shoot at the sign, a run into the into the sea in our pirate dress and a celebration with a glass of that well known pirate tipple... champagne.

So it's done! Mission SW630, Complete! Ta-Dah! Once again a massive thank you to everyone who has supported us along the way, with homestays, dinners, taxi services, bag drops, likes and comments on our posts and donations to Royal British Legion and Youth Adventure Trust. Your support has been amazing! Fundraising update to follow but for now sleep beckons!

Image uploaded with update

1 year ago

SW630 Day 73
A ridgeline near Kimmeridge to Swanage

Currently cooking up a last night on the path romantic dinner for one (a mush in a bag meal) while Mark goes in search of a kebab shop - he had a mush meal for lunch and two in a day wasn't enticing !!

We have made it to just short of Swanage leaving no more than 9 miles we think for tomorrow! Whoo hoo!

Today has some tough sections with overgrown paths, some beasts for hills - definitely tough enough to rank in the worst hills league table and a long day by our standards as we wanted to push to get as close to Swanage as we could...and as Mark would point out it took 3 miles to even get to the Coast path at Kimmeridge thanks to my highly disapproved of diversion!

We also were running low on food supplies so have been pretty hungry all day and there were no shops or cafes. And rookey error we didnt realise that early enough to stock up. Mark was too preoccupied moaning and grumping about my diversion to Corfe Castle and I was too preoccupied defending my reasoning. So limited food stocks today. Disaster!

Anyway we made do, but it wasn't ideal. What was ideal was a kind couple called Terry and Ann taking inviting us for tea, toast and biscuits at their home when our paths crossed just outside Swanage! First brew of the day at 6pm = Best Tea EVER!!!

One day to go! Aiming to get to South Haven Point in Poole by 2pm....can see the route from here over towards Old Harry's Rocks. Seafront, then one hill, bit of cliffs and a long sandy beach we reckon and we will be done! 🤩

Image uploaded with update

1 year ago

SW630 Day 72
Weymouth to Lulworth and around the Lulworth Ranges

Having left Pugwash and Pearl with Nicky and got a lift back to Weymouth we were happily surprised to be met at the clocktower by Youth Adventure Trust's Fundraising Director Lou Balaam to wish us on our way for the day. And the socialising continued as shortly after Mark's mate Polly joined us again for the walk along the seafront.

Once out of Weymouth though it was back to just me, Mark and Boss the Parrot. The morning was pretty easy walking, but we knew it would get harder in the afternoon as we hit the iconic rollercoaster of hills around Durdle Door. But to be honest, we bossed it! 70 days of hill training must have paid off! Of course being without Pugwash and Pearl is a game changer but even aside from that we definitely found it easier than the last time we'd done it on a very early date - something of a distant memory now we have experienced tent life together (trying to avoid being too graphic about tent life specifics as I keep getting told its TMI!)

It was exciting to pass the well known coastline of Durdle Door and felt like we are really near the end now!

In Lulworth we were met for a cup of tea by Dave Turnbull (also ex Navy!) & his wife Karen who have been following and chatting to us on SWCP FB and have also been walking the path themselves in sections. Then we were whisked off by Nicky to Corfe Castle where she looked after us with a delux car park picnic with castle views and delicious home-made veggie curry. Amazing!!

Saying our goodbyes to Nicky we took back Pugwash and Pearl and set off to find the sea again. Sadly this is where it got a bit depressing when we realised we could see Poole from the top of the ridge we were walking along... we could even see the end point at South Haven Point! This would have been super exciting...other than the fact we were walking away from it, heading West not East to get back to Kimmeridge. Aaarrrggh!!

Mark would happily have been dropped off directly in Kimmeridge but I didn't want to skimp too much on mileage so instead of a massive inland road diversion around the closed Lulworth firing ranges which we had been told was not fun and not worth doing, we had opted for this Corfe Castle solution recommended on the SWCP website...not realising after 70 days heading to Poole how demoralising it would be to be walking away from it! I hadn't realised that we'd be able to actually see it!!

Anyway the moral of the story for anyone wanting to walk the path is hit the Lulworth ranges when they are open! Which is quite tricky when they as so close to the end of the trip, and at this time of year only open at weekends (and not every weekend). But there is basically no good option to get around them!

That said, we did just wake up camped on top of a ridge with gorgeous views of sunrise over Poole. And some interested cows peering over the fence! So it ain't all bad really! Even Mark seems to have cheered up about it!

2 days to go now!

Image uploaded with update

Our 2 charities

Youth Adventure Trust

Charity number: 1019493

The Royal British Legion

Charity number: 219279

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