Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i Country Walking

This month I've been… I REMEMBER BEING DESCRIBED as a ‘perfectionist’ by a teacher when I was young, and bristling with pride. Only the best for me! Forty years on and I can't tell you how much I hate the very idea. Perfectionism sets everything on a scale from worst to best – flattening the world into a vapid plane quite unlike reality, and worse than useless for navigating life by. Would we ever do anything if we waited for the perfect conditions? Perfectionism is cowed by abundance – preferring an arid discrimination which ends in finding nothing quite good enough. It's the opposite of the direction in which walking pulls us – to find beauty and curiosity and contentment in more things and simpler ways. That's why in this…

1 Britain's oldest road is turning 50 For at least 5000 years, people have walked The Ridgeway – drovers, traders, farmers, soldiers tracing the drier ground atop the chalk hills of southern England. And in 1973, 87 miles of it officially became a National Trail. The 50th celebrations run all year, with broadcaster and anthropologist Mary-Ann Ochota as anniversary patron: “Many people appreciate the amazing history and myths linked to the route but this is also a time to be looking forward. I would like to see people from across society enjoying the Trail.” Starting close to the World Heritage listed stones of Avebury and ending at Ivinghoe Beacon in the Chilterns, it is a route laden with views, and with stories from Merlin to Chewbacca, King Alfred to Winston Churchill.…

BROUGHT TO YOU IN PARTNERSHIP WITH 2.74 x 365 = walk1000miles.co.uk IF YOU RECKON you can walk 2.74 miles (or a little under an hour, in total) today – congratulations, you can walk 1000 miles in 12 months. And when you put it like that, of course you can. The magic of #walk1000miles isn't that it requires a huge athletic over-reach, or a radical reordering of your day-to-day life. Yet with its simple nudge and reward cycle on your side it WILL change your life for the better, in big, small and surprising ways. We hope you enjoy reading all the reasons why walking 1000 miles is the best possible investment you can make in the launch supplement that comes with this issue. It's all wonderfully true. For now all…

2022 was my first time doing your #walk1000miles challenge and I've really enjoyed it. It has helped me with my self-esteem and confidence, especially after losing my four-legged best friend Megan last year, after which I found it difficult to go out. I live in an urban area and work full time so my walks have not been that interesting and I've walked about 90% solo. But I buy Country Walking every month and really enjoy reading. It's helped me and encouraged me to get out there. I'm really pleased and proud I've been able to complete the challenge and I've already signed up for next year, when I hope with my newfound confidence I'll go on longer, more exciting treks and perhaps with a group. I'm so keen to…

The View THE LIGHT IS failing. You're approaching the end of a satisfying winter walk. As dusk falls, you follow the path through a gloomy stretch of woodland, trees bare, forest floor thick with fallen leaves, twigs, bracken. Out of the corner of your eye, you glimpse something moving in the undergrowth. It's probably a bird. But surely too large… and the way it scuttled, then turned to look at you for a cold, odd second then vanished, it was more like… a child. Perhaps you've had an experience like the above. That frisson of glimpsing or hearing a creature that defied description, that was probably just a fish or a crow or a deer but slipped away before we could get a picture, and now exists only as an…

FOR MANY OF US, walking is an important means of escape. It offers us a break, not only from the likes of noise or stress at work, but also from the big crises of the day – the most recent being the cost of living. As soon as you head out that door, the news stories warning that we'll all be surviving off grit and pond water this time next year soon fade into distant memory. Instead, the trees, the birds and flowers (who couldn't care less about the price of gas) rightly come to the front of your mind. Unlike other activities, walking doesn't require a racket, protective pads or a membership. It's totally free – and even the gear that adds to your comfort and enjoyment doesn't have…

A THOUSAND MILES IS the long way from Land's End to John O'Groats. But it's also just 2.74 miles a day over 12 months. In human speak, that's less than an hour, and something you can do on your lunch break or on your way to work. It can be a daily walk around the park, along a canal or even while you shop. Or you could save up most of your miles for big weekend adventures. Its flexibility and the forgiving nature of averages makes it a challenge you can do, and you will do. It doesn't have to involve long walks in far off lands (although many challengers choose to include these as part of their adventure, and our partner Macs Adventure can help with that). You can…

Sign up free Register free at walk1000miles.co.uk/signup to make sure you get our email newsletters and competitions. Be sure to tick the box that says we can contact you or you'll miss out. Join the Facebook group The friendliest community on the internet is here to support you, cheer you, pick you up when you're down and leave no question unanswered. Join today: facebook.com/groups/walk1000miles Join a mini-challenge Five new fun, seasonal or silly challenges are in each new edition of Country Walking: your chance to win a money-can't-buy Golden Badge! Upgrade to walk1000 miles+ New: now from £8.99. See your mileage build on a virtual journey from Land's End to John o'Groats. get encouraging milestone messages and upgrade to get an exclusive patch or medal. Get your participation badge Remind…

CUT-OUT AND-KEEP ROUTES OUR POCKET-SIZED ROUTE CARDS START ON PAGE 83 SOUTH WEST Shaldon, Devon The views stretch from Dartmoor to Dorset's Isle of Portland on this Devon coast circuit brimming with history. TURN TO WALK 1 EAST Felbrigg, Norfolk There are 181 round-towered churches in England, and this farmland walk visits four, opening in National Trust parkland. TURN TO WALK 13 WALES Traeth Penllech, Gwynedd There's a chance you'll spot seals and porpoises on this walk between sandy bays on the Llŷn Peninsula's wild edge. TURN TO WALK 21 SOUTH EAST Arundel, West Sussex Head across the wooded dip slope of the South Downs from this castle town, then back along the tidal River Arun. TURN TO WALK 4 NORTH WEST Langdale Edge, Cumbria Seek out grandstand views down…

LOVED TO BITS A lot of my walking is in fields and woods, where winter turns paths to quagmires. The muck is often too much for my walking boots, and I'd always found wellies too sloppy – until I got these. A snug neoprene cuff grips around my calf to keep draughts and splashes out; the moulded insole keeps my feet in place, and supported; the outsole has plenty of bite, with an extra-grippy Vibram option too; and they're fleece lined and rated down to -40°C. The £145 RRP is high, but you can find them under £100 and mine are headed into a third winter of daily walks and leaping-in-puddles with no signs of wear. See muckbootcompany.co.uk Jenny Walters, Features Editor THE WALKING POLL We asked… How often will you…

Favourite place for a walk? When people ask me what my favourite song is, I say I haven't heard it yet. Same with walking. I don't want to think, ‘right, that's the best place and I'm just going to keep going back there from now on’. I want to keep looking. What I probably do have is a favourite environment, and that is Sri Lanka, where my family are from. I have a sense that in Britain even our nature is reserved: it follows a certain palette and certain rules. In Sri Lanka, nature is flamboyant, extrovert, loud; colour and sound are everywhere in a kind of overwhelming rush of sensory magic, and I love that. If you could walk with anyone, from any time, who would it be? Hard…

ACTUALLY IT CAN be as little as ¼ mile from your front door. Have you ever noticed that when you're in a jolly mood everything is apt to seem funny? The wonder of life is like that. You don't have to go to the ends of the earth to experience awe and fondness and gratitude for being alive at this particular time on this particular planet – you just have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate wonder is a broadcast that's always on – we're just not always tuned in. Footsteps turn the dial finely and precisely. Isn't that sky beautiful? Isn't it incredible the seasons wheel round, millennia old yet never showing any kind of fatigue, and never less than brand new? Isn't it marvellous…

WALK HERE See Walk 9 in this issue for your step-by-step guide to this fabulous 7¾-mile pub crawl. GETTING THERE Elton is just off the A605 between Oundle and Peterborough. No rail links sadly, but there are plenty of bus options from both towns. WHERE TO EAT, DRINK & STAY All three pubs along the route are recommended with gusto. The Falcon at Fotheringhay (01832 226254, thefa/con-inn.co.uk) has a range of sandwiches and light bites for £8-£10 and a la carte mains from £20-£26. The Queen's Head in Nassington (1780 784006, queensheadnassington.co.uk) has a lovely range of ciabatta sandwiches for £9.95 and mains between £19 and £19. It also has rooms, with doubles from £69. The Crown in Elton is five-star AA rated, with luxurious doubles from £140 and mains…

Tiny, mottled-brown, tail cocked at a jaunty angle: the wren is the UK's commonest bird. Eleven million pairs live here, though fewer in the north and mountains as their miniscule bodies struggle with cold. Its scientific name troglodytes troglodytes means ‘cavedweller’ and reflects its habit of foraging for bugs in sheltered nooks. Wrens are prodigious, creative architects: the male builds a selection of domed nests (which have been found in a church pulpit, the mouth of a stuffed pike in a garage, the running board of a lorry); the female picks one, then feathers it cosily to lay her speckled eggs. The bird's titchy syrinx can belt song so loud it can be heard up to half a mile away, ringing out five-second riffs of piercing notes and softer-fire trills.…

Big ones too. The most famous is the Mountains of Kong, a long line of peaks through West Africa that first appeared on a map by James Rennell in 1798, apparently based on a remark by Scottish explorer Mungo Park on spying some distant contours: ‘people informed me, that these mountains were situated in a large and powerful kingdom called Kong.’ The range stayed on maps for almost a century – although its height went up and down and it drifted about a bit – before Louis-Gustave Binger declared in 1889 it did not actually exist. Hereford's prized Mappa Mundi – a luminous depiction of the world on a sheet of vellum measuring 64 inches by 52 – has the labels for Africa and Europe the wrong way round. Hard…

What do we mean by managing a hedge? Put simply, it involves cutting trees to a desired size and shape, exploiting natural regeneration to make a dense living barrier. Hedgelaying is an age-old and wildlife-friendly way to do this. A laid hedge starts life as a row of young trees, which are thinned out and then cut part way through at an angle near to the base. These hinged stems, called ‘pleachers’ or ‘plashers’ (among other names), are then laid down to form a stock-proof barrier, held in place by a line of hazel stakes. It looks stark at first, but it won't be long before nesting birds move in and the hedge is blossoming the following spring. With periodic, incremental trimming outside the nesting season (which encourages fresh growth)…

EVERYDAY WONDERS DISCOVER Common plants DEEP PURPLE Heather is a testament to the power of numbers, as millions of tiny flowers turn Britain's moors and heaths to billowing pinkpurple clouds in late summer. Three main species grow here – the reddish-purple bell heather; the pink, bog-loving, cross-leaved variety; and the commonest, mauve-pink kind known simply as heather, or ling. That name comes from the Anglo-Saxon lig meaning fire, as heather was once an important fuel – and acres of moor are burned in-situ today to promote growth of tender young shoots favoured by grouse. Heather's technical name, calluna vulgaris, comes from the Greek meaning ‘to brush’, and the springy plant has also furnished bedding, thatch and building materials for our homes, fodder for our animals, and nectar for the most delicious…

SHOP SMART The world of sales and special offers can be perplexing. Whenever you find something that looks like a great deal, it's always worth Googling the product to see how much other retailers are selling it for. It's also worth waiting for end-of-season sales, where you might find top-notch gear at a knockdown price. Some big-name brands have factory outlets that sell samples, refurbed kit and factory seconds, often at impressively reduced prices. Some do it online: Páramo use eBay, and the OSC brands (such as Mountain Equipment and Sprayway) use mountain-magic.co.uk. Some chains (eg Go Outdoors) have members-only discount schemes. And before you buy anything, always check to see if you're eligible for money off. Some stores offer discounts to NHS staff, key workers and/or Armed Forces members,…

A cool drink in the shade of a tree on a hot sunny day! Mandy Cooke A bench, log or suitable rock to sit on to have your lunch and rest your legs. Simon Morgan That herd of deer just over there by the wood. Denni Morrison The hot shower after a cold, wet ‘n’ windy walk. Rosana Maria The way the smells in a forest change with the seasons. Debbie Herbert My absolute joy is getting to the top of a hill or mountain. Cynthia Parton Having a flask of tea and listening to birdsong! Louise Lester Find a secure location for a wild wee! Laura Cairns A cool drink in summer or warm brew In winter with a magical view. Sandra Allen Apricity – the warmth of sun…

I just start walking? Anywhere? The adventure starts right at your door. And part of the beauty of the challenge is it's up to you to set the precise rules – it's YOUR challenge, not a competition. Some people, particularly those starting from a lower fitness level, choose to count every step on their step counter or phone's health app. Many will count all the miles they do that they wouldn't otherwise have walked before – and whether it's in your lunch break, getting off the tube a stop early, round the block in the evening or exploring the country it all adds up. Others will count only the miles they cover on walks with boots on and in the countryside. It's up to you! How do I track my…

IN SEPTEMBER 2021 I signed up to a challenge to walk 50 miles that month. I only realised then how unfit I was, as I struggled to walk half a mile at first! I very nearly didn't complete it, but felt so much better for doing it – just getting out every day was an achievement. But once the month was over, my mental health took a nosedive and I became a recluse. It's hard to explain depression to those who don't get it. I was desperate to go out. I wanted to go fora walk… but the very thought of stepping outside was completely terrifying. The very idea of doing #walk1000miles was utterly bonkers – I couldn't possibly do it. But I told myself every mile was an achievement…

Make it a draw ‘To encourage my family we have an envelope full of pieces of paper with local walks written on them. We then get one person each week to pick one out and that's where we go on the weekend for a family jaunt!’ says Clair Maskell. Walk the line Louise Lester aims to walk 2023 to match the year, and also loves finding old train lines and places that have been used in films… Add a ticklist Liesl van Niekerk is gradually bagging the high point of each county on her way to 1000. Make it a streak As well as his 1000-mile target, Neil Vincer aimed to build a daily walking streak – so far he's up to 1000 uninterrupted days with a walk in! Toughen…

EVER SEEN SOMEONE train for a marathon? It's a punishing regime of strain, pain, then a good dose of agony. #walk1000miles is nothing like that. How many challenges do you know where you can cross the finish line while playing bagpipes (as Sue Evans did in October)? What other goal can you reach where, along the way, you can win additional accolades for wrapping a trig point in a dressing gown or dunking your head in a stream? For however mighty the end goal of this challenge is, you'll achieve it while doing an activity that, at times, can be laugh-out-loud silly. It can have you knee-deep in mud, crawling under walls, being chased by squirrels, inadvertently stepping in cow pats, and a whole host of other things that can…

VIEWFINDER A magic kingdom Step off the lane in Glen Uig on the Isle of Skye and you step from reality into a storybook. There are tiny emerald hillocks, secret dells, little pools, a twined grove of ancient hazel trees, a miniature citadel of crag called Castle Ewen: it looks like magical forces have taken the great basalt outcrops of the nearby Quiraing and Storr and shrunk them to a size suited to the fairy folk. Nobody knows who Ewen was, or what enchanting beings may dwell in this Fairy Glen, but Britain is sprinkled with enchanted places like this. There are Fairy Hills, Fairy Lochs, Fairy Dells and Fairy Falls, while fairy stories are linked to hundreds more places, from bathing pools on County Durham's River Tees to fairs…

Having just received my December edition of Country Walking, I dived in with the usual gusto and was intrigued to read on page 12 the article on Ernest Shackleton's Endurance. You state that his great-great niece has been granted permission to use the name on her narrow boat, and this will be the first vessel to carry the name since the Endurance was lost during his 1914-16 expedition. In fact the Royal Navy has had two commissioned vessels of this name, the first HMS Endurance being an ice patrol vessel, purchased from Denmark and in service 1967-1991. She spent summer in the Antarctic surveying and helping the British Antarctic Survey team. She also played a big part during the Falklands War. In 1991 another ice patrol vessel replaced her, also…

The picnickers spread out their blanket, put down their hamper and admired the view. But these weren't ordinary ramblers. They were Russian spies at the height of the Cold War, secretly surveying Britain's landscape – to fill in the blanks on those OS maps. They weren't the first clandestine cartographers: the British did it in the high Himalaya in the late 19th century. Tibet's borders were closed to Europeans but the British in India were determined to know more and recruited local men to map the mountains, risking death if caught. Known as pundits, they disguised themselves as pilgrims, concealing a tiny compass and note paper in a prayer wheel, carrying a small thermometer to measure altitude by the boiling temperature of water, and counting off carefully-modulated paces (2000 to…

KING OF THE TREES An oak, particularly an ancient one, is a stop-in-your-tracks wonder: a great trunk with deeply fissured bark lifting to a majestic crown of twisted branches, an ecosystem that can be hundreds of years old and support 2000 species of wildlife. This tree's lobed leaves are the first many of us ever learnt to identify, and Britain has two native species: the English, or pedunculate oak with acorns on stalks, and the sessile oak, with acorns bound tight to the branch. The former favours the south and east of the country, the latter the north and west, and it's something of a marvel any are still standing, so hungry was the demand for ship building and charcoal burning in previous centuries. Of today's 120+ million oaks, 49,000…

EVERYONE HAS SAME 365 days ahead of them. We've all got to earn our pennies, see to our chores, care for our friends and loved ones, and keep on keeping on. But at the same time as doing all that, some of us will also do something incredible. Something that will skyrocket our health, happiness and resilience; fill our lungs with fresh air, our hearts with optimism and heads with colourful, fragrant, surprising memories. We will walk 1000 miles. If this is your first time I know what you're thinking and I hope this magazine will overwhelm your fears with concrete proof you can do it and it works. If it's your fourth, fifth or sixth time – hey, me too. And I am more convinced than ever that committing…

Jack Wolfskin Clothing partner Our mission, just like #walk1000miles, is to motivate people to go outside and connect with nature, experience new things, and enjoy life outdoors with family and friends. We offer exceptional products that unite functionality, sustainability and on-trend design so you can Live to Discover! jack-wolfskin.co.uk Scarpa Footwear partner Scarpa has been a world leader in footwear for over 80 years, continually innovating. We are passionate about the outdoors and creating the best footwear possible and have an extensive collection of boots and shoes to ensure people have the best fit, performance and comfort at all times. We're pleased to partner the challenge to encourage more people to get walking and enjoying the outdoors. scarpa.co.uk Bridgedale Sock partner At Bridgedale we believe it's the little things that…

Walk 1000 Miles 2023 Walking makes you mentally healthier One in six of us has had a common mental health problem in the past week. But walking has a three-card trick that makes it just as effective as medication (and a lot more fun). Dr David Crepaz-Keay from the Mental Health Foundation says it helps first by releasing your happy hormones and balancing your cortisol levels that help you to manage stress. The second is by getting you into nature. And the third is the social connection we get from walking. “Walking is like the oats of the exercise world – it elevates your mood in a sustained way,” says David. Research from the University of Gothenburg revealed walking as little as two hours per week cuts your chance of…

Sixty-nine-year-old Denni Morrison had completed her first year of #walk1000miles and knew how great it made her feel. But her 28-year-old granddaughter Rhiannon wouldn't leave the house and said her life seemed empty. Denni knew the challenge would open her world ‘She took some persuading, but she knew I wasn't going to give in! I tried to make each walk an adventure with something special to find or see or pick. I also made sure halfway through each walk we'd bump into a pub or a coffee shop. ‘Signing up was a big step for her. It meant making a commitment to do something scary and that could mean failing. I really didn't think she would do it – but I'd completely underestimated this brave new granddaughter of mine.’ In…

‘Literally changed my life’ ‘After 45 years of nursing and approaching retirement I was short of breath at the slightest exertion, had swollen feet and ankles, high blood pressure, gastric problems and arthritis in my feet, neck and spine. I felt down on myself, and isolated and it was a vicious circle. If I was going to enjoy my retirement I would have to be fitter and healthier to enjoy it! So I signed up for #walk1000miles and started calorie counting. I've lost just over two stone but the improvement in my health is amazing. My joints feel freer, I'm no longer short of breath, my blood pressure's normal, gastric problems gone. I now walk every day and although it sounds dramatic, it has literally changed my life. It makes…