THREE West Somerset friends have celebrated walking the South West Coast Path, which took them six years to complete.

Hazel Binding, Carolyn Cape, and Carol Matravers, now in their sixties and retired, started in 2019 taking ‘bite size’ chunks out of the route, walking about 100 miles across three or four weekends a year.

Carolyn, who had a career in banking, lives in Porlock Weir, while Hazel, a farmer’s wife who ran a B&B, and Carol, a former medical secretary, both live near Wheddon Cross.

Now, they have received their medals and certificates for completing the entire 630 miles from Minehead to Poole.

Following the presentation they went together to see the new film The Salt Path, which tells the true story of a couple who embarked on the coast path walk after losing their home and livelihood when the husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Hazel, Carolyn, and Carol are not expecting any Hollywood film director to snap up the rights to their own adventure.

However, Carol said: “We are hoping The Salt Path will inspire others.

“You can just see so much when you walk the coast path that you would never otherwise see.

“It is very beautiful and we are so lucky to live in this part of the world.

“We live here and probably take it for granted, but when you walk all those little coves you see so much and realise how nice it all is.”

The adventure began when Carol and Hazel decided to walk from Minehead to Porlock.

Carol said: “When we got there, we said ‘we can do this thing’.

“Then, Caroline joined in and she had already walked Minehead to Porlock several times.

“In the beginning, we averaged about 10 miles a day, but it varied, especially when we got to Devon and Cornwall and we tried to organise other things to do while we were there, such as visiting a tin mine and the Minack open air theatre.

“We had no time limits, we just said we will do what we can.

“We thought if we do it within 10 years, that would be great.”

The routine was to leave a car at either end of the section to be walked and book accommodation mostly in static caravans rather than camping out.

The trio walked between April and October annually to take advantage of longer daylight hours.

Carol said: “Then, the Covid pandemic happened and put a stop to everything for a while.”

A setback followed in 2022 when Carol was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and ‘never thought I was going to finish it’.

After Carol’s cancer diagnosis, they started to use their walk to fund-raise for Musgrove Park Hospital and its Beacon Centre, and recently presented £2,198 to Love Musgrove.

Carol said: “Thanks to their dedicated staff, I continue to make good progress.”

There are no plans for another adventure, because, said Carol: “The memories of what we have done will stay forever.

“I do not think another trip would be as good.”