Back in March, when our knowledge of pandemics was, at best, naive, we picked up a map for the Surf Coast Walk, thinking to do it before winter closed in. But even as we cycled towards home, a tempest was whirling around us and uprooting normality. Borders were closing and Melbourne was going into lockdown. In July, a ‘ring of steel’ was imposed, prohibiting travel out of the city.
Melburnians, steadfast in adhering to the lockdown restrictions, were rewarded for their forbearance. In November 2020, with no COVID-19 cases for weeks, the ‘ring of steel’ that held us to within a few kilometres of home came down. Soon afterwards, we caught a train and bus to the coast, southwest of Melbourne, and breathed in deep draughts of wildness.
The Surf Coast Walk traverses the clifftops, beaches and Moonah woodlands that hug the coast between Fairhaven and Point Impossible. For almost 50 kilometres, over two days, we wandered along the edge of the continent, absorbing the intense blue of the sea and sky, the dusky green of the trees and the red and yellow ochres of the crumbling cliffs.
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St Cuthbert’s Way is a beautiful and intriguing walk across borders and through centuries of history that have left an indelible imprint on the landscape. 
The Thames Path follows the river from its source in the rolling Cotswold hills, past historic sites and cities, in and out of quaint villages, wildflower meadows and beech woodlands and on through the heart of London to the futuristic Thames Barrier in Greenwich.