h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I tackled this walk in early December while on a family trip to Butlins in Minehead. Being hoteliers, we work all over Christmas and New Year, and last year we decided to get a few days away together - and Butlins was cheap. There was quite a gang of us, which made it easy for my brother and I to get a day away on the Coast Path. We don't see each other that often, as I live in Devon and he lives in the Midlands, and it seemed like a great way for us to get away from our separate lives and get together for a day.

It was pretty poor weather all week; heavy fog covered the coast, and it was very cold and miserable. We went all John Muir one breakfast time; despite fairly big hangovers we chucked a couple of pastiesin a satchel and went walking.

We stopped for a litle while at the monument on Minehead seafront. As a fairly regular coast path walker, it was good for me to see the start and imagine the miles of twists and turns and ups and downs that stretched out between here and Poole. The size of the task ahead had a context, but I'd chalked off a few days already and here was another one. Spending it with my best friend and the guy who, unbeknownst to us as we stood there in the fog, I'd ask a fortnight later to be my best man made it take on a special significance. We shivered at each other one more time and walked on.

There's nothing like a good walk for making time for each other. As we climbed through the fog, we tried to walk slowly enough that we could have a conversation without running out of breath, and within a few minutes it felt like years hadn't passed. Our Dad was going through a messy divorce, and our Mum's husband's mother, who Ed was quite close to, had died two days before. It was a good time to be together. We were fairly convinced we wouldn't see a view all day, but it didn't matter.

When we came out of the woods, it all changed. All of a sudden we found we'd risen above the fog line, and with a cry and a mild obscenity I noticed the hills of Wales. Between us and them lay the Bristol Channel, but you wouldn't know it was there; for filled the valley, and it looked for all the world like we were alone on some misty mountain top. The last time I'd seen anything like that I was in Nepal, and here I was 80 miles from home feeling the exact same wondrous sensations. We found a bench, and it was pasty time.

The walk on was no less wonderful; the rolling hills of Exmoor as it joined the coast, the views of Porlock spit, and the quiet pints while waiting for the bus back. What made the day special for me, though, was the way the simple act of going for a walk brought us together so swiftly and easily, and gave us both some perfect memories. Who says walking is dull?