Exmouth man Tim Jones and his dog Monty passed through Kingsbridge and Salcombe on Friday as part of his challenge to walk the entire British coastline in aid of The Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

Tim said of the venture: “I’ve wanted to walk the entire British coastline for a few years, but circumstances weren’t always right... I was walking Monty on Exmouth beach as he loves it there, and passed the RNLI boathouse daily. This got me thinking about the charity side of things, and I weighed up my options. At this time circumstances were right, and it was a no brainer. So I got in touch via the RNLI website, and started things moving.”

Tim and Monty will be walking the entire British coastline clockwise. They started at Exmouth RNLI station on January 20th, and are heading down to Land’s End before going to Bristol, through Wales and so on. There are a lot of estimates of the distance involved, but they expect the journey to be about 8,000 miles.

Tim said: “I have estimated my journey to take 4-6 years, as I’ll be walking the whole of British coastline including Scilly Isles, Isle of Man, all of the Scottish Islands, and the Isle of Wight and Channel Islands.”

The pair will be living in a tent, and getting food and water where they can, as they are trying to keep weight down.

The walk hasn’t been easy: “So far I’ve had really bad feet, sore shoulders and a tired dog beside me. Temperatures have hit as low as minus 4 overnight, but daily the weather has been good for walking, chilly without rain. My main difficulties were when I lost my iPhone, as this was my lifeline and way of contacting people to arrange meets at RNLI stations, accommodation, etc. Another difficulty was obviously what to carry with me, because I’m effectively carrying for two.”

Tim has raised £1,010 so far on his RNLI fundraising page, which you can find at: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/TimsRNLI

He also has a ‘survival’ page set up to support Monty and himself as they are doing the excursion with very little money. This can be found at: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/montytim

Tim also has a Facebook group called ‘Supporters of Tim walking the British coastline for RNLI’, where people can follow his journey around The British Isles, and contact him to provide support in the form of accommodation, meals, dog food, or just a cup of tea.