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The Independent
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Inspired to walk the ‘Salt Path'? These are the best bits of the 660-mile coastal route
Raynor Winn's debut novel, The Salt Path, first captured the hearts of readers when it was published back in 2018 and quickly became a Sunday Times bestseller. The memoir, which has been turned into a film now in cinemas, tells the story of everyone's worst nightmare. Not only did she and her husband, Moth, lose their home and B&B business at their Welsh farm after an investment went wrong, but they truly hit rock bottom when Moth was diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative disease, corticobasal degeneration. Without any other options, they came up with the idea of embarking on an adventure, by walking the 630 miles of the South West Coast Path and seeing where it took them, figuratively and physically. With almost 300 miles of it in Cornwall, it begins in Minehead in Somerset, traverses along the north Devonshire and Cornish rugged coasts, and heads back along the south coast of the counties into Dorset, finishing at South Haven Point in Poole. It's a mammoth walk that initially seems almost totally unachievable for them, considering Moth's ill health, along with having such little money that they have to live off packet noodles, and wild camp. In the film, locations aren't given, and instead, geography is only marked by the number of miles walked, focusing on the idea of the gravity of the challenge, and how location doesn't matter to them. Instead, it's all about keeping moving. As one of the UK' s best coastal hiking routes, the South West Coast Path can be taken at a much slower pace, and walkers usually complete it in sections over many years. So if you're inspired to pull on your walking boots, here are some of the best sections along the famous route to stomp along, as well as places to rest your weary head, that don't include the need for a tent. 1. Clovelly to Hartland, North Devon Some of the most memorable – and instantly recognisable – scenery in the film comes from the little 14th-century village of Clovelly perched 400ft up on the north Devon coast. Clovelly isn't actually on the coast path itself, it's just off it, as one of the UK's only privately owned villages. It's been privately owned by the Hamlyn family and their descendants since Elizabethan times, which means you have to pay to enter (£9.90 for adults). The current owner is John Rous, and it's this entrance fee that's allowed it to become a maintained relic of a time gone by that's still inhabited and thriving and, most importantly for Cornwall, hasn't been taken over by holiday lets as second homes aren't allowed. The walk down to the harbour isn't the easiest, as not only is it very steep, but it's entirely cobbled too. Too steep even for cars, years ago villagers came up with the idea of using sledges to transport goods up and down the slope. Years ago, donkeys were used, but now you'll find them in the stables at the top of the village. Back on the path, this section that's part of the Hartland Heritage coast is truly spectacular with soaring ascents, making it renowned as one of the hardest parts, but the views make it well worth it. Stay at: The Collective, Woolsery In the little village of Woolfardisworthy, locally known as Woolsery, is the Collective, a complex made up of a pub, fish and chip shop, local shop, farm and accommodation. The area has been given a new lease of life thanks to Michael and Xochi Birch. Millennial readers will remember their social media platform Bebo, which they sold. They then swapped Silicon Valley for north Devon, as Michael's family had lived here for 600 years. The Farmers Arms pub has excellent food, including hogget from their own farm too. There are rooms, suites and cottages over the road. Doubles from £275 night; 2. Boscastle to Tintagel, north Cornwall Perhaps the most ethereal villages on the entire coast path are Boscastle and Tintagel, which are only about 3.5 miles apart and will likely take about five hours to walk between. The fishing village of Boscastle sits in a deep rugged valley that's incredibly dramatic and has an air of mysticism to it. Its windswept landscapes inspired poet and author Thomas Hardy, while it's also home to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, with thousands of witchy books, spells and paraphernalia. Walking out from Boscastle's pretty harbour, pick up the coast path along the clifftops where the white watchtower is perched. Just under a mile from Tintagel, if it's a sunny day, drop down to Bossiney beach, a fabulous little sandy cove, for a swim. The section is another fairly challenging part of the path, but you'll see Tintagel Castle in the distance before descending into the village. It's regarded as the birthplace of King Arthur and is steeped in myth and legend. From the heart of the village, it's another steep walk down to the ruins of the castle (there are Land Rovers for those who prefer a quick ride) which is owned by English Heritage and costs £16.80 for adults. The reward is worth it, thanks to the views walking over the footbridge, suspended 58 metres above the sea, over to the medieval ruin. Look out below at the craggy inlets, and Merlin's Cave, a blowhole that makes a loud whooshing sound as the waves wash in as the tide comes in. On the other side, don't miss Gallos (which translates to 'power' in Cornish) the life-size bronze statue that's been inspired by King Arthur. Stay at: Kudhva Just two miles from Tintagel is Kudhva (Cornish for 'hideout'), a glamping site with futuristic-looking angular treehouse pods that sit among the treetops, with ladders up to the entrances. The whole site, which is set in a disused quarry, is about connecting with nature, from swimming in the lake to stargazing. In the film, one of North Cornwall's biggest towns, Newquay, is portrayed as a rather down-and-out place full of delinquents. It did have a reputation as the place to celebrate finishing school exams, and being full of stag and hen dos – but now this is firmly behind it. It's always had some of the UK's best beaches and has been the home of British surfing since the Sixties, hosting the championships at Watergate Bay. From Watergate Bay, walk about an hour north to the beautiful small town of Mawgan Porth. Once it was only locals who knew about this wide open beach and great waves, but now it has been found by celebrities and it's changing quickly. Or for a longer hike, head south along the coast to Perranporth, which is about 4.5 hours of walking. Cornwall's first aparthotel, SeaSpace bridges the best bits of a hotel and an apartment. It's right on the clifftops above Watergate Bay in Newquay and has one- to three-bedroom apartments. For the best views, book a room at the front of the building which looks over the sea. Families will love the Miami-inspired 19-metre pool, and you can also hire a surfboard and hit the waves that are just a hop, skip and jump away. 4. Pendeen lighthouse to St Just, West Cornwall At the southern tip of Cornwall on Land's End peninsula are some of Cornwall's best preserved tin mines. The industry was the beating heart of the county in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was the world's biggest tin exporter, making the county extremely wealthy. Unsurprisingly, it's now designated a world heritage site. Starting from Pendeen lighthouse, heading south will take you past the Geevor tin mine museum (one of the last mines to close in 1990), the Levant mine, Crown's Engine House and Botallack mine (which features in both the 2015 Poldark series and the Rick Stein's Cornwall series), as well as the Wheal Edward Engine House. The rolling cliffs here are full of drama, and some headlands have very narrow paths, which almost feels like walking on a tightrope; they're so narrow that they likely won't be there for too much longer, so tread with care. Stay at: Gurnard's Head hotel Slightly further back up the coast is Gurnard's Head hotel, an unmissable landmark thanks to its bright gorse-yellow painted exterior that's right on the clifftop. The former coaching inn is still a traditional cosy pub (refreshingly, there are no TVs in the rooms), and it's just a short walk to the coast path. 6. Branscombe to Beer, east Devon Along this little stretch of east Devon's coastline, there are two of the county's most picturesque beaches. Starting in the twee 14th-century village of Branscombe, where the local thatched pub has taken over much of the village, it doesn't get much more bucolic than this. From the beach at Branscombe, with its dark reddish cliffs and beach huts, it's about 4.5 miles to Beer. At Beer, the pebbled beach is flanked on either side by the south coast's chalky cliffs. At the end of each day, the fishing fleet is hauled up out of the water onto the pebbles waiting to return again the following day. At the top of the beach, near the sloped entrance, and just 100 metres from the water, is a hole-in-the-wall fish market selling the day's catch. Stay at: Glebe House Slightly inland, near the village of Southleigh, is Glebe House. Run by Hugo and Olive, they're paying homage to the Italian agriturismo model of B&Bs. Plenty of the food they serve comes from their smallholding, they organise food experiences with nearby producers, and Olive's eye for colourful, vintage-inspired artsy interiors is infectious. Doubles from £159 night; 7. Kimmeridge Bay to Swanage, Dorset This final walk comes in right near the end of the South West Coast Path, which officially ends at Shell Bay on South Haven Point in Poole, just opposite Sandbanks and Brownsea Island in prime Enid Blyton territory. Part of the Jurassic Coast world heritage site, it's far quieter here than the much shorter Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door section further east. This is the longest section featured here, covering just over nine miles, from Kimmeridge Bay to Swanage. Walking along the chalk ridge, this section is one for budding archaeologists which keen fossil hunters will also love as it's an area people have lived and hunted in since the Mesolithic period, about 6,000 years ago. Views from the aptly named 'Heaven's Gate' are some of the best – inland looks to the Purbeck Hills, and over to Corfe Castle, and it offers excellent views back over the coastline. A fitting view to end on. Looking a little like The Pig hotels, The Canford is on the other side of the English Channel and is just a short ferry ride over. It has chic countryside-inspired rooms in heritage colours that sit above the pub.
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Heartbreaking reality behind Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson's The Salt Path
The Salt Path stars Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson as a couple who embark on a 630-mile walk after suffering a number of life-changing setbacks - but is the new movie based on a true story? The new film, The Salt Path, narrates an extraordinary and uplifting tale about a couple who undertake a challenging journey after facing a series of severe hardships. Raynor and Moth Winn – portrayed in the film by Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs – found themselves homeless in the same week that Moth was diagnosed with a rare terminal illness, given a maximum of five years to live. Instead of succumbing to these adversities and surrendering, the duo decided to traverse the South West Coast Path, an experience that proved to be incredibly rejuvenating, as they encountered the generosity of strangers along their journey. Indeed, the film is based on the real-life story of the couple Raynor and Moth Winn, as recounted by Raynor in her memoir bearing the same title. It follows their 630-mile coastal journey along the South West Coast Path after being evicted from the farm they called home. In the same week they found themselves without a roof over their heads in August 2013, Moth was dealt a devastating blow with a terminal diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD). Raynor, upon discovering a Southwest Coast Path guidebook, felt it was their final shot at freedom. Despite Moth's health deteriorating each day at the outset of their journey, his condition remarkably began to improve as they continued their walk – and astonishingly, he's still with us over a decade later, having been given no more than five years to live at the time of his diagnosis. The screenplay, penned by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, remains faithful to the true events of Raynor and Moth's remarkable tale, albeit with minor creative tweaks. Raynor shared: "The final script was beautiful, capturing the essence of the original story while taking it forward on a powerful new journey." Gillian and Jason are no strangers to portraying real-life figures, from Margaret Thatcher to Cary Grant. However, in an exclusive chat with the duo divulged that embodying individuals away from the public gaze presented a unique set of challenges. "It's definitely less stressful, less pressure," Anderson elaborated. "You want to, obviously, do right by them and to be respectful in your impersonation. But at the same time it's not quite as intense as doing somebody who's in front of the public eye as much as say a Thatcher or Emily Maitlis or something. "Because the public aren't going to go, 'Well, that's not like them,'" Isaacs concurred. "But also, we really like them. Ray and Moth are amazing people, and their story is so inspiring. The books are so successful, and rightfully so, because they contain messages of such hope and belief and compassion." "And so you not only want them to feel glad that we're doing it, but you want the audience to feel what we felt when we met them, when we read their stories and to be as moved and inspired by their story." "When it came to meeting the real-life Raynor and Moth, Isaacs clarified that he was less focused on mimicking mannerisms and more interested in understanding what made the couple tick. I'm never gonna be as tall, handsome, smiley [as Moth], he's just an extraordinary man," he admitted. "So I just wanted to know, 'What is it inside him?' One of the things I got when I met him is the sign that he wanted everyone else to feel comfortable." "He makes a joke of everything, even when he was talking to me at great length about this tremendous indignity and terror of his condition and where it will naturally end, he wanted to make me feel at ease. So he made me laugh all the time about it. That's a quality I recognised and could walk away with," she reflected. Anderson shared that listening to Raynor narrate the audio book of her memoir was instrumental in helping her embody the character. "It felt like I was properly immersed in her rhythm and her personality," she expressed. "Her accent is quite unusual. Both of their accents are quite unusual. And I found it very challenging. So I think at the end of the day, you kind of choose what feels organic and isn't forced, and hope that that's enough of an impression that they can recognise themselves."
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Film review: Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs are remarkable in The Salt Path
The Salt Path ★★★★★ The Salt Path Casting around in desperation in the moments before they are forcibly removed from their home, Ray alights on a battered travel guide, and makes a snap decision: despite Moth's incurable degenerative disease, the pair pack a small tent and start hiking out around the West Somerset Coastal Path. And that, in a nutshell, is the plot of The Salt Path, a story salted not only by ocean spray but bitter tears as Ray and Moth take stock of their lives, their marriage and themselves whilst slowly hiking the hard yards into their precarious future. Adapted by Rebecca Lenkiewicz from Raynor Winn's memoir, and directed by Marianne Elliott, The Salt Path is a story of major losses and tiny victories, of constant pain and simple joys, of sifting life's hard-earned truths from the chaff of ephemeral irrelevancies. The slow, epic trek is regularly punctuated with unexpected meetings, occasional rudeness and — more frequently — the kindness of strangers. With no roof over their head, Ray and Moth become more observant of the world around them, growing closer to nature and adapting their pace to the slower rhythms of nature. There's humour here too: at one point Moth is mistaken for the English poet laureate, Simon Armitage, which leads to a very welcome cold drink, hot meal, and even a massage for Moth's weary body; later, Moth — who is reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf as he trudges along — will lean into the mistaken identity and busk an impromptu public reading that buys that evening's fish and chips. But this is no idyllic hippy-dippy yarn: the couple are at the mercy of the ever-changing weather, subject to brutal economic realities and acutely aware that Moth's agony is worsening the further they go. Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs deliver remarkable performances, and particularly in terms of the couple's intimacy: married for 20 years, Ray and Winn are like a pair of trees growing into one another, stripped bare by an unkind climate, bent but never yielding. Marianne Elliott, transitioning from directing theatre and TV, delivers a film as spare as the story's plot; the film is as unsentimental and healing as the windswept landscape itself. All told, it's a tour de force. theatrical release Karate Kid: Legends ★★★☆☆ Jackie Chan, Ben Wang and Ralph Macchio in 'Karate Kid: Legends' The first rule of Kung Fu, apparently, is that everything is Kung Fu. Karate Kid: Legends (PG) stars Ben Wang as Li Fong, a Beijing-bred teenager and Kung Fu fanatic whose life is upended when his mother (Ming-na Wen) relocates to New York. There he meets Mia (Sadie Stanley), the daughter of washed-up boxer Victor (Joshua Jackson), whose pizza restaurant owes a large debt to a local mobster. And so, against his mother's wishes, Li starts training for the Five Boroughs street-fighting tournament and its $50,000 prize, aided and abetted by a pair of bickering mentors, aka the eponymous legends Mr Han (Jackie Chan) and the original karate kid, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio). Plot-wise, Jonathan Entwhistle's movie pretty much retells the story of Karate Kid (1984), although here, in a reversal of roles, the young Li gets to train the older Victor as the latter prepares for a make-or-break comeback bout, blending Kung Fu elements — the ability to 'move like water' and become sinuous, unbreakable — into the more traditional boxing skills. The young Ben Wang is an amiable presence in the lead role, even if Li's transition from martial arts novice to maestro is far too rapid to be plausible; meanwhile, the supporting characters are a likeable bunch. The martial arts are fast and furious, and the ever reliable Jackie Chan brings some much-needed humour to the proceedings. It's solid, but no knock-out. theatrical release Read More TV review: Stories of Surrender shows Bono baldly defending his reputation
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Britain's loveliest coastal path turned me into a hiker – and now is the perfect time to tackle it
We were in tatters: sunburnt, rubbed raw, bone-sore, stiffened. Thirsty too, though getting to the bar proved a Herculean labour: we had to manoeuvre our legs with our arms, then haul ourselves there, grabbing on to pub furniture, as if relearning to walk. Which, in a way, we were. This was the Cobweb Inn, Boscastle, June 2007, and the end of my and my now-husband's first day on the South West Coast Path (SWCP), our first long-distance, multi-day, world-on-our-backs hike, carrying too much stuff and too little experience. Frankly, we were shell-shocked. What was this strange, terrible, wonderful thing we'd embarked upon? After just a day, we were almost broken, totally in love, changed for ever. The SWCP, which wraps around the edgelands of Somerset, Devon Cornwall and Dorset, can do that to a person. That and more. Today, May 30, sees the release of the film The Salt Path, the big-screen adaptation of Raynor Winn's bestseller, recounting her journey on the trail with her husband, Moth. After losing their farmhouse, and discovering Moth has a terminal degenerative illness, they decide to go for a long walk. 'Excited, afraid, homeless, fat, dying, but at least if we made that first step we had somewhere to go, we had a purpose,' Winn writes. 'And we really didn't have anything better to do at half past three on a Thursday afternoon than to start a 630-mile walk.' It's a brilliantly insane decision, resulting in a tale of desperation, hope, love, resilience, social injustice and the power of nature. And it's centred on three compelling characters: Raynor and Moth – played in the film by Gillian Anderson and Jason Issacs – and the SWCP, playing itself. It's no surprise that The Salt Path was filmed at real-life locations. This National Trail is A-list. It certainly dazzled me: I grew up on the other side of the country, and had never been to Cornwall before this walk. I'd no idea British seas could be so turquoise, the foreshore so wild and varied, the cliffs so craggy, the cottages so cute, the air so laced with – what is it? A potion equal parts gulls, sea salt, surf-boof, fresh-baked pasties and bygone smugglers (the path was established in the 19th century so coastguards could patrol). I drank deep of this elixir as – after the first few days of agony and exhaustion – I eased into the trail's rhythm, discovering a strength and a freedom and a joy I didn't know how to contain. As my life was stripped back to just meals and miles, I'd never felt richer. This wasn't a holiday, it was an epiphany. Hiking has since become the thing I do. My gear, fitness and knowledge have improved; the euphoria is the same. We didn't start the SWCP at the beginning. It runs from Minehead to Poole, but we'd found a Trailblazer guide to the section between Bude and Falmouth (203 miles) and were swayed by the more manageable distance and the book's lovely hand-drawn maps. Over subsequent years, we returned three times to complete the full 630 miles. Tough, unrelenting and spectacular, the SWCP's personality changes frequently. Our first Cornish section felt mystical, infused with Arthurian legend, Poldarkian mines, bootlegging bays and fishermen's shanties. It's on this stretch that you walk through The Salt Path film locations such as foodie Padstow – where a gull brazenly swiped my husband's last mouthful of Rick Stein fish and chips – and garish Newquay, which briefly yanked us out of our serene walking world. This stretch also encompasses pretty higgledy-piggledy Port Isaac, promontory-perched Godrevy Lighthouse (which inspired Virginia Woolf), arty St Ives, sandy Sennen Cove, carbuncular Land's End, tiny Penberth Cove (we spotted basking sharks here), the tidal isle of St Michael's Mount and gorgeous Kynance Cove. Our second leg (though sequentially the trail's first) was from Minehead to Bude, encompassing one of my favourite sections: the Exmoor coast. Indeed, there are few finer ways to spend a weekend than walking the 26 miles from Porlock to Combe Martin. This is where you find the path's highest cliffs (topping out at the 318m Great Hangman), its most secretive combes and its most idyllic cream teas, at Lee Abbey Tea Cottage. The film lingers here, revealing the wide sweep of Porlock Bay, with its eerie dead trees, as well as the Valley of Rocks, a dramatic glacial groove nibbled by wild goats and running parallel to the sea. Falmouth to Exmouth – our third chunk – felt more civilised. There was still plenty of windswept up-downing, but it was more often interrupted by inconvenient estuaries (requiring detours or ferries) and seaside resorts, some charming (Polperro, Noss Mayo), some not (Par, Paignton). Reached via ferry from likeable Falmouth, the Roseland Peninsula is a real highlight here, as is secluded Polridmouth, on the Menabilly estate – the inspiration for Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Yachtie-posh Fowey and Salcombe are obvious superstars, but more intriguing are the deserted, cliff-clinging village of Hallsands and shingly Slapton, used for D-Day practice, including the ill-fated Exercise Tiger, during which at least 749 US servicemen died. Perhaps my favourite outing, though, was a diversion from Dartmouth, up the Dart Estuary, to Greenway, Agatha Christie's country retreat. Finally, on our fourth trip, we traced the Jurassic Coast, from Exmouth to Poole, where Dorset's rolling green innards meet millennia of gob-smacking geology: the Undercliff, where landslides have created a unique wildlife habitat, the fossil-flecked shores of Lyme Regis, 191m-high Golden Cap, the rock arch of Durdle Door, the perfect arc of Lulworth Cove. Finally, just past the naturists on Studland Bay (quite the send-off…), you hit the sign at South Haven Point marking the trail's end. I still remember how I felt, finishing the path. It was some kind of grief, a little like the Portuguese saudade: that not quite translatable feeling of loss for something that hasn't physically gone. The path would still be there, only I wouldn't be walking it. Yes, the SWCP left its mark. My circumstances, fortunately, were nothing like those of Raynor and Moth Winn, but the effect wasn't entirely dissimilar. Winn writes about encountering a woman who says she knows the couple have been walking for a while. 'It's touched you,' she explains. 'It's written all over you: you've felt the hand of nature. It won't ever leave you now; you're salted… When it's touched you, when you let it be, you're never the same again.' How to do it Macs Adventure (0141 530 7886) offers walking holidays along the whole SWCP. A seven-night, self-guided Padstow-St Ives trip costs from £959pp, including B&B accommodation and luggage transfers. The beachfront Nare (01872 501111), on the Roseland Peninsula, has doubles from £406 per night B&B. Fowey's characterful Old Quay House (0172 683 3302) has doubles from £161 per night B&B.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Salt Path: Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs are weighed down by their script
For most travellers, walking the 630-mile coastal path from Minehead to Poole – tracing the whole finger of the Southwest Peninsula – might be cause for a two-month hiking sabbatical. For the married couple in The Salt Path, based on a 2018 memoir by one of them, Raynor Winn, it became the solution instead to a more immediate problem: they'd lost their home. After an unwise investment in a friend's failing company, they forfeited a court case and found their farm repossessed. The health of Moth (Jason Isaacs) also declined alarmingly, and he was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration (CBD). When he and Raynor (Gillian Anderson) decide to heave on their backpacks and set off regardless, they have hardly any cash to hand, subsisting on instant noodles, charity, and whatever else they can scrape together. This modestly scaled drama is the feature debut of the fêted West End theatre director Marianne Elliott (War Horse, Company). It makes genuinely important points about homelessness, and the middle-class horror of ever crossing that line. But the script, by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida, She Said) is a surprising letdown. It strikes the ear as a Cliffs Notes version (pun intended) of Raynor and Moth's coastal trek, with too many exchanges milked for nudging significance: an argument when the couple's tent is almost washed out to sea, about whether it constitutes their new home or not, is par for the course. Humour – even of the gallows kind – is not a huge strong point, either. That said, in one genuinely funny interlude, Moth is mistaken for the well-travelled poet Simon Armitage at an ice-cream van, and the couple get invited for an excruciating moment to a spontaneous soiree at someone's home. The pin-drop silence that descends when Raynor disabuses their hosts is hilariously bleak. Isaacs, on a roll with this and The White Lotus, is never not grittily believable. Perhaps the female perspectives framing this story, from page to screen, made it inevitable that he would cede the more lingering close-ups to a luminous Anderson, who digs as deep here as she might in a Beckett play – Happy Days, perhaps, with a smattering of Godot. Raynor seems to be gazing out at her own ruin, pre-grieving her husband, and mourning past contentments, all at once. The cinematography, by French legend Hélène Louvart, straightforwardly roams these craggy headlands right alongside the Wynns. But, for all the most fascinating glints of quartz, and scars of attrition, we need only look in our leading lady's face. It turns to the sun for nourishment and balm whenever the sun is there: sunlight is free, after all.
