There, ahead of you on the sand, stands a simple finger-post. Walk the last few steps and put your hand on it, because you have done it.
This is South Haven Point, the eastern end of the South West Coast Path, and this weathered marker celebrates the completion of the longest National Trail in England: six hundred and thirty miles, all the way from Minehead, round the whole south-western peninsula, to this windswept spit at the mouth of Poole Harbour. The path ends here. And so does your walk.
Let it sink in for a moment. This point was fixed as the finish when the Coast Path was stitched together from older tracks, the routes of customs officers and coastguards who once patrolled every cove of this shore watching for smugglers. Their working paths became a way of pleasure and pilgrimage, and this quiet corner of the Studland peninsula became its full stop.
On one side of you lies Poole Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world, a great drowned valley of sheltered water; on the other, the open sea you have walked beside for so long. Between them runs the narrow harbour mouth, crossed since nineteen twenty-six by the Sandbanks chain ferry, hauling itself back and forth on its clanking chains.
Before you turn away, look for these things. First, the marker itself, of course, worn by the hands and the weather of every walker who has finished here, and waiting now for your photograph, the traditional last picture of the walk. Second, turn and look back the way you came, south and west along the Purbeck coast to the white pinnacles of Old Harry Rocks, standing bright at the edge of the sea.
Third, watch the chain ferry work the harbour mouth, and the boats slipping in and out of Poole on the tide. Fourth, take in the wildness at your feet, for Studland's dunes and heath are among the richest wildlife places in Britain, home to all six of our native reptiles, to rare birds, to seals and seabirds around the harbour mouth. And fifth, simply stand still and feel the enormity of what your legs have carried you through.
Because think of where you have been. Behind you lie the high hog's-back cliffs of Exmoor, the wild lonely combes of Hartland, the ruined engine houses of the Cornish mining coast standing gaunt against the Atlantic. You have rounded Land's End and the Lizard, the two last toes of England.
You have crossed the great estuaries of Devon by ferry and by footbridge, tramped the red cliffs of the south Devon coast, and walked the whole fossil-studded sweep of the Jurassic Coast, from Lyme Regis to the folded rocks of Purbeck. You have known blazing days and horizontal rain, aching climbs and long level miles, the kindness of strangers and the deep company of your own thoughts. Every one of those miles is now behind you, gathered into this single moment on the sand.
Here is the last story, and it is yours. Somewhere back at the start, on Minehead's seafront, there stands a great sculpture of a walker's hands holding a map, the traditional beginning of the path. Whatever day you set out from beneath it, you could not truly have known this day, this finger-post, this harbour mouth, this feeling.
The Coast Path is long enough to change a person, and thousands who have finished here will tell you they arrived at South Haven Point a little different from the walker who left Minehead. That is the quiet gift of a very long walk.
The Coast Path goes no further; from here the chain ferry will carry you on across the harbour mouth towards Poole and Bournemouth, back into the ordinary world. But take your photograph first. Stand at the marker, look back along the whole magnificent coast you have walked, and let yourself feel it. You have walked the South West Coast Path. Well done. Walk safe.
