Walking in fog changes the scale of everything. You stop looking for views and start looking at what is near: the beads of water on a spider web, the bark of a single beech, the sound of a sheep you never see.
The ridge path is about eleven kilometres from the church to the old quarry. It is well marked, which is a good thing on a morning like this one. I counted the waymarks out of habit, and was glad of every one.
Fog is not the absence of a view. It is a different view.
By eleven, the sun burned through above the quarry. I sat on a cold stone and watched the valley appear, field by field, like a photograph in a developing tray.
]]>I had wanted to walk this stretch of coast for years. The plan was simple: start at the harbour, follow the cliffs north, take the bus back.
The first day was all climbs and descents, each cove separated from the next by a steep headland. I stopped counting the steps after the fourth staircase.
Rain in the morning, then a long, flat section along the dunes. A café owner in a tiny village refused to let me pay for my soup because, she said, "nobody walks here in the rain unless they really mean it."
The wind. It pushed me north for the last twenty kilometres, which was lucky, since that was the direction I was going.
I came back with sore knees, a sunburnt neck, and a notebook full of small drawings of rocks.
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