Falmouth, Cornwall. Tuesday 22 January

For the first time a total stranger has shared their moonwalking with us. We present Robert Self-Pierson:

In the Waterfront, Falmouth, I talked to a local student about his new horror film. As I stood to leave for my moonwalk, he said, 'Lunatics - comes from lunar. People are supposed to go a bit mental at full moon. See ya.'

Now filled with dread and fear, I climbed Swanpool Street and Pikes Hill. They felt steeper than ever. Youths raced old bangers up and down the gradients. I panted my way to the top and then down the unlit alleyways to Cliff Road. The plan was to walk a circuit of the town picking the most isolated areas to fully appreciated lunar lighting.

My planned journey soon changed as I encountered a group of swearing, shouting, stone-hurling lads on the same walk around the coastal path from Gyllyngvase to Swanpool Beach. Research in Brighton has tried to prove there's an increase in violence in towns at full moon - the werewolf effect. Alex from the pub had slurred about increased testosterone, the moon's regulatory influence, and menstruation. Not your average pub chat. As the louts turned and took in the unseasonably warm air, and possibility of a good fight, I stared in their direction. Perhaps quizzing them on their testosterone levels wasn't the wisest thing to do tonight, so I turned. A reverse of the journey was indicated, finishing with a walk from Swanpool to Gyllyngvase.

A drunk swayed up Melville Road - a main residential route out of town towards Penryn, driven at night only by the odd taxi. Marlborough Avenue leaves the lit roads and heads downhill by gravel. My poor sense of direction took me this way and didn't disappoint. I was lost. By mile-high street lights, I referred to my map. A quick re-adjustment and I cut across to Theydon Road, through chicanes that wouldn't look out of place at the Monaco Grand Prix. I was completely alone. The moon rarely showed her shape, the warm air didn't move; all that sounded were the last calls of a blackbird in a distant tree.

Boslowick Road leads towards Cuckoo Mile - a path shown on the map as a dotted crescent. Surely darkness guaranteed and with luck a moon to aim for? Before I reached the Mile, I passed a garage. At 12.45am a man stood washing his car inside a carwash. There's dedication for you. The water trickled down to a stream that splashed under the road.

Cuckoo Mile may be a mile long but in complete darkness, alone, by full moon, armed only with a snazzy torch-compass, it seems longer. It takes you down. It's a track. Slush and leaves and mud had turned it into a ski slope. Beyond the streetlights of the Devine View cul-de-sac, Cuckoo Mile is a tunnel, leading into a narrower tunnel. My eyes had adjusted enough to make my torch useless - but that doesn't mean I knew my next step, or my possible killer. No wolves howled, no witches cackled, no vampires attacked - but darkness had its effect: disconcerting but exhilarating. A heart thump to accompany every step.

At least half a mile down I reached the cross-paths. The map showed this: a curving mile clearly intersected by a smaller quarter mile; a crucifix of paths. In reality, my path split four or five ways. I turned and looked for an obvious continuation of Cuckoo Mile, but soon all paths became moving hands on a muddy clock face. I unfolded the map but couldn't read it. Heart thump. I started down one heart thump. Nothing. It led to a rushing stream. It turns out the noise of angry water is the howl on a moonwalk alone.

A sign for Captain's Walk appeared. I knew that name: a walk along the cemetery towards Swanpool. A cemetery in darkness seemed no scarier than a muddy mile. At one point graves lined me either side. Still no moon but the again the unerring silence - absolute silence. There are no motorways, no A-roads, no louts through the graveyard at 1.30am on full-moon.

On Swanpool Lake a gaggle of geese were having a late one. The smell of seaweed took me back to childhood crabbing evenings, leaning over the promenades on Colwell Bay on the Isle of Wight, my older brothers pulling and pushing me. But this was the sea of Swanpool. It was 2am. A man sprinted across the dead road onto the beach; he then disappeared between rocks. I looked up to see the clouds had parted, leaving the moon to reflect to earth, full if a little spotty. The spring tide, which earlier had revealed the longest stretch of algae I'd ever seen, fizzled in and out like clockwork.

Earlier I spoke to Sue from Avalon, a Wicca shop in town. People think the full moon having an effect on humans is rubbish, she said. But if you look at the tides, we accept the moon controls them - and we are 80% water, so it seems pretty clear that it will affect us too.

The coastal path led me home. Three Battleships twinkled on the horizon, not sunk by my stone-throwing opponents. I sweated below my overcoat - partly due to the clammy night but also the excitement of my first moonwalk of the year. The moon stayed with me, occasionally obscured by feathery clouds. For the first time it looked like the moon of Bram Stoker, of Shelley. Through the trees, stripped by winter, she became gothic horror, the moon of Alex's film. But I smiled back home. With nothing more than a torch-compass, map and moon, I'd spent two hours enjoying the things of nightmares while everyone else stayed indoors.

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