Walks of the right length
I'm always looking for walks to do at the weekend near where I live. I’ve got books, newspaper cuttings and hundreds of tabs and bookmarks. I’ve discovered some beautiful places that way, which I might never have discovered on my own.
However, the thing that always frustrated me was trying to find walks of the right length. I’d check the contents for a place that was easy to get, look it up (or click through), only to find the walk was just 2 miles long - or 17 miles long. That’s why all my walks are split down into long and short. The long walks are all 10 miles long (about 16km). The short walks are all 5 miles long (about 8km). Every walk has at least one long and short version, plus there’s often ways to shave a couple of miles off the longer walks if you prefer - or if, like me, you end up starting the walk at 1pm on a winter afternoon and it’s dark by 3:30.
About me
Small confession here: I’m not a walker. I don’t do walking holidays and the last time I went to the Lake District I only climbed one mountain (Coniston Old Man, and halfway up I thought the old codger was going to kill me).
But come the weekend I love to strap on my walking trainers, escape London and get lost in the countryside. Small towns, woodlands, fields, pavements, footpaths, downs, valleys. There’s so much to see around London and walking is the perfect way to do it. I love discovering tiny historic churches, old mine workings or quarries. I just adore walking along a river and listening to the babble of the water. And I love views - especially when I have a picnic to munch on while I look out over them.
When I started doing walks within an easy distance from my home in Crystal Palace, South East London, I thought it was going to be disappointing. I grew up in the rolling hills of North Hampshire, near Watership Down and thought nothing within earshot of the M25 would be able to compete. But I was wrong. There are so many really beautiful places within striking distance of the city. I often find myself looking out over a valley and thinking I could be in the Peaks or the Lakes when I’m actually only a couple of miles from the Whitgift Centre.
I walk with my husband, David
“After a day's walk, everything has twice its usual value.”
I didn’t say that, GM Trevelyan did.