Ian Finch, Norfolk Coastal Expedition Company and Catering
Moments like these define the journey. On most sailing trips, the ship is the end, but for Henry it is a means to an end. For Henry it is a 24-hour exercise in living in the moment, small, unscripted adventures guided by tides and weather. We float down streams in wetsuits at high tide, brew tea on salt marshes as geese croak in the vast sky. We chat and nap on board, wade through mud banks at low tide to pick samphires. The days feel long. The accommodation on board is simple, hammocks or camping mats under a canvas canopy and a thunderbolt on the bow. But we light the wood stove and eat fish stew in a golden stream where seals cry at dusk. Henry tells me this was a life-changing moment. I can believe it. His trips allow him to interrupt his busy schedule and slowly drift with the rhythm of the tides, bringing out the stillness and beauty. James Stewart
Tours for up to six people, including meals, start from £1,500. coastalexplorationcompany.co.uk
A wild drive on Exmoor
North Somerset is new territory for me, driving down leafy lanes and across heather-covered moors. A coast I rarely hear of, with the Quantock Hills rising to the east and high cliffs towering over the Bristol Channel. Village names call to mind A-level English literature, like Coleridge's Nether Stowey and Porlock. Others, like Brompton Ralph and Huish Champflower, sound like characters from an Ealing comedy. I navigate, my friend Rufus pilots our Land Rover Defender (Cherry Belle), with our two teenage sons in the backseat. A pheasant scuttles cartoonishly ahead, disappearing at the last moment into a hedgerow. The Defender is our home for the next two nights, but the itinerary is designed by Wild With Consent, which matches campers with farmhouses with open spaces. It's a no-frills campsite. The luxury is having the fields to ourselves for a night or two. We reach the first Trips Farm as night falls. Our headlights rattle the grass as we drive through the gate. The Land Rover is equipped with everything we need: table, chairs, lamps, a camp kitchen, even books and playing cards, all stored as neatly as my dad's old metal toolbox (we bring our own food and sleeping bag). But the highlight is the ingenious rooftop tent, which cantilevers out in just a few minutes. Inside, we're enveloped in warm nostalgia for childhood memories of the top bunk of our beds. The next morning we rise early into the sunlight to take in our first views from our elevated campsite. The Brendon Hills below are blurred by mist, birds sing from the old oaks, and not a soul in sight. The independence of vanlife that our rugged Defender gives us was on full display on day two, when we drove to and from Exmoor and to Watchot by the sea for fish and chips beneath the sad statue of the Ancient Mariner. We had time to hike up to the cairn at Dunkery Beacon, the highest point in Somerset, and admire the shimmering water all the way to Wales below, before camping at Stockham Farm near Dulverton, where we gathered firewood to cook on the camp stove and watch red deer frolic in the woods below. Rick Jordan
