A 28-year-old woman had to be rescued less than five kilometres after beginning her walk around the UK.
The unnamed Coventry woman set off from Minehead, Somerset and ran into trouble when rising tides trapped her below steep cliffs.
She had planned to walk the 1,014km South West Coast Path, but deviated off-trail to the beach below. By the time she realized her error, the rising tide had trapped her and she had to call for help.
A lifeboat drew close to shore, and rescuer Karla Thresher swam to meet her. She explained to the trekker that the only way off was to swim to the boat. The woman swapped her huge backpack for a lifejacket and swam to the boat. Thresher followed, grappling with the sizeable pack.
Uninjured and undeterred, the woman was supposedly going to begin her trek again the following day.
Rescuer Karla Thresher, centre.
Recreational walker numbers have spiked in the UK in recent years, and so have rescues. “Lots of people have just read books about coastal walking and think: ‘Oh, I’ll give that a go’,” said Thresher. She adds that rescues are particularly common along this section of coastline.
Depending on the route, a walk around Britain covers 4,300km to over 10,000km. The exact number of people who have walked the entire distance is unknown, but one website suggests that 53 have completed the route in one go.
