Exmoor is the first major landscape Ray and Moth cross after setting out on the South West Coast Path, and the place where their new life on foot becomes tangible: the route is steeper than expected, the ground opens into exposed moorland, and night arrives before they have found a place to pitch their tent. It gives their journey both its first physical ordeal and an early lesson in the difference between a mapped path and the terrain actually underfoot.

Setting and approach

Ray and Moth reached the start of the South West Coast Path at Minehead late on a Thursday afternoon, after arriving there by bus from Taunton. They had only recently become truly homeless, with their rucksacks beside them and no home to return to; the walk offered a reason to keep moving and a way to give shape to an uncertain future. At the starting monument, giant metal hands held a map marking the path. They lingered over photographs and packs before taking the first step on the 630-mile route.

The transition from town to upland came quickly. The path climbed through woods above Minehead by an excruciatingly steep zigzag, where the pair had to stop on a bench and catch their breath. A glimpse of the sea through the branches offered a partial reward, but the climb also exposed how little the guidebook’s understated directions prepared them for the actual effort. From the woods they eventually emerged onto moorland, where the ground levelled, ponies grazed and views opened towards South Wales.

The path against the guidebook

The ascent made the gap between representation and experience one of Exmoor’s defining features in the narrative. Ray and Moth consulted Paddy Dillon’s South West Coast Path guidebook as they climbed, but its description of a path that drifted inland and uphill sounded almost absurd beside the steep zigzag beneath their feet. Their stop to reread the directions turns a practical navigation problem into a comic, weary negotiation with the landscape: the guide offers a mild phrase, while their legs and lungs register a serious climb.

That mismatch also establishes the terms on which they will travel. The route is marked and described, yet its demands cannot be known from the map alone. Exmoor’s first rise makes the walk physical before it can become familiar, and the couple must continually adjust their expectations to the ground. The views from the moorland broaden towards South Wales, but the open prospect does not make the distance ahead feel manageable. Their hoped-for destination is Poole; in the moment, even reaching Porlock seems uncertain.

Dusk on the open edge

As the day turned to evening, Ray and Moth realized they were on the open edge of Exmoor above the Bristol Channel, with darkness approaching and a place to pitch the tent still to find. The low, grazed grass they had crossed was behind them. Ahead, small flat patches were scarce, while heather and gorse crowded the ground. Ray concluded that the tent might have to go on the path itself; Moth objected that someone would come along in the morning and make them move. The disagreement captures a recurring condition of their journey: even a basic need such as shelter has to be negotiated against the landscape and the possibility of being challenged.

They continued walking, with Ray’s hips burning. The account does not resolve the immediate question by describing a campsite on Exmoor; instead, the exposed evening and the unsettled search for somewhere to sleep remain part of the location’s significance. The moor is not simply a scenic interval between towns. It confronts two people without secure accommodation with the practical limits of where they can stop, at the very moment their new route is supposed to provide direction.

Bodily experience and the journey’s meaning

Exmoor’s landscape is registered through effort and sensation as much as through its views. Later on the route, Ray describes reaching the top on the far side of a valley and turning towards the sea cliff: the rock path reflects heat onto their faces, while wind lifts beneath her rucksack. Height brings vertigo and exhilaration together. She feels carried by the wind and salt air, while Moth walks leaning away from the sea and towards the cliff. The contrasting bodily responses show that the same exposed ground can produce different experiences even for two people travelling together.

Across the walk, repeated steps gradually become more than a means of reaching the next point. Ray describes the path as a rhythm in which pain and hunger soften into an ache, then into a steady cadence; each climb becomes a small victory and each day survived a reason to continue. Later, the act of walking also helps her accept that she does not need to own land in order to belong to the world around her. These reflections belong to the wider journey rather than exclusively to Exmoor, but the landscape’s steep climb, open air and uncertain places to stop introduce the conditions from which that understanding develops.

Narrative significance

Exmoor marks the difference between setting out and discovering what the journey requires. At Minehead, the couple can still pause before the monument and imagine a long walk as a chosen direction. On the climb and open moor, that choice is tested by fatigue, the limits of a guidebook’s descriptions, dwindling daylight and the lack of an obvious place to sleep. The landscape offers expansive views, yet it does not provide shelter or certainty.

That tension gives Exmoor an important early role in the account of Ray and Moth’s homelessness. Walking is both their chosen means of moving forward and the condition imposed by having no door to return to. The first stretch across the moor brings those meanings together: the path gives them purpose, while its exposed ground reminds them that purpose does not remove the material insecurity of life without a home.