Walking Home to Hastings
Toby Sims has been walking from Cape Wrath (the north-west tip of Scotland) home to Hastings, for the joy of it, and to bring the spirit of the wilderness home.
STAGE 6: WINCHESTER TO HASTINGS
The soft, feminine curve of the South Downs – that is how I have always thought of them – and the gentle rise and lilt of our Sussex chalk hills, is as deeply implanted in my heart as music and love, beyond my power of words to describe. They are part of what makes Sussex home.
But the concluding part of my journey had to be put on hold, as a stomach bug laid me low at Winchester. Unable to eat and completely exhausted, there was no option but to rest. Harder than peat bogs and storms has been coping with the feeling of grief that the walk had been lost through this hiatus. I so wanted to join the pre-Winchester part to the last section, and I did accomplish this in the end. It was as if I had reached out into the night and grasped and held onto a starbeam.
Early Morning on Graffham Down; Ditchling Beacon from the West
I returned to the trail with renewed vigour. It was after a week of baking hot weather, and the grassland of the Downs had become as brown as the earth beneath. Then on the second day an ominous clap of thunder heralded a torrential downpour; I felt the dry and barren earth was being reunited with her lover, the rain. One afternoon the sun at last shone on the Downs; it was as I passed Lewes, the place where, 44 years earlier, so many of my most formative experiences had taken place: that day was a journey through precious memories.
My last day was the most beautiful. The sun dazzled from a transcendent-blue sky and golden leaves danced in a playful breeze. My walk had spanned spring in the Highlands to the first touch of autumn at home. Dear friends joined me for the final few miles to Rock-a-Nore Beach. I had taken a pebble from the Stade which I had deposited at Cape Wrath, and carried another from that distant place the 1,194.9 miles over 88 days, which I now deposited on my native shore, thus joining the two places forever.
Toby in Hastings Country Park – almost home
For every physical journey there is a psychological or spiritual journey that runs in parallel, and every journey through life is mapped onto the places and people which it has touched. My walk has been rich in that elusive and ineffable quality I might call ‘meaning’; I am not the same person who set out. So if I have learnt something of the nature of homecoming, if I am more connected to my heart; if, through it, I have encountered greatness, and even learnt a little humility, then neither my walk nor my life will have been entirely wasted. It is meaning I now take forward into my life and into my work as a funeral celebrant. Because whilst the death of someone dearly loved is always a deep sorrow, if you can hold fast to the their life’s meaning, it is no longer a tragedy, and he or she will never be lost.
I have walked home to Hastings, to love and peace and joy.
• The full story of Toby’s journey can be read at www.walkhometohastings.net, from where he can also be contacted.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply