RB – Page 18 – WildþingUK

What country, friend, is this?

Twelfth Night – the last of Christmas.

Now, if like Viola and Sebastian you happen to find yourself shipwrecked and cast onto the shore of Illyria, you might find that you are without you necessary walking kit.

And what should I do in Illyria?

In these circumstances, the first task is to find shelter, then sustenance. Food can wait, but Not to be abed after midnight is to be up betimes. Illyria is well provided with forests, but keep far enough up that Still you keep o’ the windy side o’ the law.

As to food, If music be the food of love, play on; but that will not fill a stomach. You might find a tavern but That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday. Short of finding a lovelorn duke to employ you, your survival skills are needed from the moment you have crawled onto the shore But jealousy what might befall your travel, Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger, Unguided and unfriended, often prove Rough and unhospitable.

Have a fine and exciting 2018.

Greeting the New Year with new things

A bright, clear dawn greeted the new day and the new year – a good time to go out, see what the new year is like, and if we approve of it. The New Year’s walk is a keen tradition and, if subdued this year as the ‘flu subsides, the fresh air does a world of good. And yes, we approve of this new year.

At the same time, a new project is beginning, and I took tentative steps to start it: a Hertfordshire Border Walk has been on the cards. The start of the path will run from outside Chorleywood station, on the county boundary, and then out across Chorleywood Common, and on to the River Chess, so that is where we went (well, the Rickmansworth Aquadrome was stuffed to bursting with runners – good for them, but not so good for our having a quiet, solitary walk). Scouting out routes takes only so much time, until I return in earnest; otherwise it is about letting the children go haring about in the woods and the meadows, breathing in the joys of the new year. This is a promising start to a new year, and new endeavours to come.

A happy new year to all.

Ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein

It is barely above zero in Crianlarich, with freezing fog descending and the hillsides will wake whitened. So it is just as well that we are in Croxley Green.

A farewell to the old year, by walking the old paths: the Croxley Green Boundary Walk, which is a lovely, unchallenging walk, just right for recovering from a flu-filled Christmas season. The whole path is six and a half miles all around the parish boundaries.

There is a lot of variety around a village of no great size, but then it is not an average village. It is a Metro-Land place but at the very edge, which bumps roughly into Hertfordshire’s big town at one end but ebbs away into the Chiltern farmland at the other, allowing a green ring to be drawn around the parish, on its hill between the Gade Valley to the Chess. It has woods, muddy paths, the canal, fields and farms, and of course the Green. The a nice, hot supper and a farewell to the year.

It has been a year of surprises, of things done and things left undone, but all that is done with now as we open new challenges.

I finished on an old, familiar path, but in the New Year there are new projects. Watch this space.

With a glowing grate and a pie piping hot

And so we begin the Christmas break, well earned and welcomed. Time to stretch and breathe and to recognise all our blessings, which we might not have seen in the welter of the working week, but stop and listen. Hear the hymns and carols and the sermon, however familiar, that might bring forgotten truths to mind. Then step outside into raw nature, where wild creation is untampered with, and feel and hear the wind in the mountains and the trees singing creation’s own praise to its creator.

In the outdoor world you do not get away from Christmas – only from the commercial encrustations. In the lane, in the wood or on the hill, you are sharing a sky with a couple who once threaded their way through the Judaean hills towards the town where an ancestor, a shepherd-king, guarded his flocks from lions beneath the open canopy of heaven, hiking through villages and through empty, desert places, stopping at night in tents around a bare fire built somehow in a treeless land, turning the warmth of the city behind them to find a hilltop town. Later they would flee through the wild desert from the wrath of a city-dwelling king. Christmas is all about the outdoor life.

For a week or so even for those town-bound, desk-bound salary-workers, the time is yours to turn your eyes up and explore the world about you. Take to the fields and to the hills: find the beauty that lies just beyond your vision. At the end of the road there may be that perfect country pub, and there may the logs burn bright and the steak and ale pie be piping hot.

A merry and a blessed Christmas to one and all.

Hope grows in the British Antarctic

The British Antarctic Survey has just announced today that they have remeasured the mountains of Palmer Land and they are higher than we thought. More than that: the highest mountain in the British Antarctic Territory is actually Mount Hope, not Mount Jackson as we always thought.

We have been getting it wrong all this time the about the territory top. I feel sorry for the BAT team who reached the summit on 23 November 1964, thinking they had reached the highest point in the British domains. Will their children now be kitting up to scale the new top?

I know this is a bit further than most mountain walkers will go, but it is a British mountain, an impressive part of the Further Wild. Mount Hope rises to 10,626 feet, two and a half times the height of Ben Nevis, wind-scoured and ice-bound: beyond the reach of the everyday hiker. Still, as Sir Ranulph said, there is no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.

I have listed the county tops of the United Kingdom, but what of the territory tops? It may have to be the next endeavour to wander the heights East Caicos and Cayman Brac, but the BAT? Not this year.

There’s no such thing as bad weather

“There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” It is snowing now even in those parts of Britain that were not affected last week, but a wee bit of snow is not a challenge: your wardrobe is.

(I will let readers argue whether the quote at the head of this page was first said by Alfred Wainwright or Sir Ranulph Fiennes, but both knew their business. Sir Ranulph knows every extreme of weather having walked to both the poles, through the Himalayas, across the Arabian deserts and so who can contradict him? In Norway, incidentally, the snow would just be considered a light introduction to autumn.

First thing, get yourself a good pair of shoes: when you go into work in the morning you cannot wear those smart black patent-leather work shoes full of holes that you usually do. Smart work shoes that don’t fall apart at the first blow of winter are available

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(In Norway, where they know a thing or two, shoe shops are not hidden round the back, at the cheap end of the high street and they are not 90% impractical women’s shoes with a corner for men as a concession – they are prominent. They understand the need for shoes that stay dry and stay in one piece.)

Those thin socks won’t work either: get some oversocks.

If you get stares when you wander in with solid shoes on your feet, be comforted that you are the only one in the office who is not about to lose their toes to frostbite. It is good weather out there, when your wardrobe is right.

Baleful legend of Cadair Idris

What is it about Cadair Idris that threatens so much and has drawn so many wild and woeful legends?

This looming fell is not the highest mountain in Merionethshire (an honour belonging to Aran Fawddwy) but is the most famous. It is a long, lofty ridge of peaks and troughs with its summit known as Penygadair at 2,930 feet; a challenging climb but one which draws many robust hikers. Its distinctive shape and beauty are richly evocative of the wild landscape over which it presides.

Here at the top of the mountain is a scoop in the rock forming a giant’s chair – for this mountain is the ‘Chair of Idris’, and filling its seat the placid tarn known as Llyn Cau.

This is an enchanted place, but hikers should not tarry overnight. It may be tempting to slumber by the tarn in the shelter of Craig Cau, but alone as you may be, beware of what is said of this place.

Now, even in dismissing local legends as heathenish nonsense, you will know the every year some unfortunate soul is dragged from the slopes of Cadair Idris, having overstretched himself or been caught in unexpected storms, and one must have sympathy with the mountain rescue teams who trudge the cursed slopes to find the lost walker who thought an iPhone was enough to navigate the timeless mountain, and to rescue him before nightfall.

This is a mountain which had stood for millennia even before Adam was formed from the dust; its slopes have been carved by ancient ice and scoured by untamed winds. It knows a thing or two that a brief visitor cannot.

The bards of old sang that Idris the Giant sat here in his chair, and many princes dwelling in the valleys about this fastness have been named ‘Idris’. Before you climb, as you may, from Dolgellau or the Mawddach, you should know that the howling wind is the baying of the Cŵn Annwn, the hounds of Gwyn ap Nudd, foretelling a death, and the tarns are bottomless and contains spirits vengeful when woken, or so has been said.

And bards frequently climbed these slopes, for it is said that anyone who sleeps on Cadair Idris alone will awaken either a madman or a poet; and few can tell the difference.

Yeah Blaby, yeah!

In Blaby today, at a meeting of the Association of British Counties, which I am always happy to help. I am presenting a number of projects; some hosted or planned on WildþingUK are hosted for the ABC and some of their new projects on footpath signage and mapping are of particular interest. Well, that and the fact that I am the Vice-Chairman.

It’s a cheering gathering from across the land, all with a love of our places, and in particular our counties: Yorkshire and Lancashire prominent as ever: the achievement of the Friends of Real Lancashire and of the Yorkshire Ridings Society over the years are shown in the local events they organise, the boundary signs around the county boundaries, the proliferation of rose-bearing flags and the strengthening of local identity in the face of official indifference. We could spend all our time admiring the achievements of the Association too, but there is more to be done: boundary signs, more resources for the public, and public engagement. I will do what little I can.

County flags are popular now: I look forward to seeing the result of the current competitions to design flags for some of my favourite shires: Berwickshire, Sutherland and East Lothian, with Herefordshire’s bull charging up close behind.

Now to grab a sandwich, then it’s down to discussing footpath signage, ruby and Lancashire paths.

It is an interesting little place Last time I was here in Blaby, I finished the day by climbing Leicestershire’s county top, Bardon Hill, but it will be getting dark early, it is raining hard and much as I love the Leicestershire countryside (“Tally-ho!”) I have things to do tonight, M1 permitting.

Lancashire Border Walk launched today

A grand Lancashire Day to thee! The Lancashire Border Walk, a walking route around the whole county palatine launches today.

Embracing the red rose county, the project is to define a path beginning at the Pier Head in Liverpool, running up the coast, north and south of the sands, round High Furness, and then all along the long Pennine border with Yorkshire to Mossley, where three shires meet, and then down the Tame and the Mersey to finish in Liverpool.

From the cities of the Industrial Revolution to the wide sands of the Holiday Coast, to the Lake District and the wild fells and moors of the Backbone of England, the route will prove an eye-opening experience to those hardy enough to take part in walking sections of it.

Much of the route has been worked out. The development of the remaining section, in particular the long Pennine section, are open for development, and the fellwalkers of Lancashire have set to, to trace a way through the hills. The sections, proposals and suggestions will be displayed on this site on our page “Lancashire Border Walk”.

Boots v Bike

There is nothing like planting your well-mudded boots in new turf, gazing ahead to yet unexplored vistas. Or is there?

There is nothing like the coursing of wind through your hair as you slip with ease past green fields and far cottages. Or is there?

Walking away, far from the oppressive bustle of life and the tyranny of the clock, with all modernity shut away in its own box and just you and the seasonable clothes on your back, and a bag with a rough hunk of bread and meat, as could have been carried by an ancestor who walked similarly equipped and talked on the way with Chaucer, or Caesar, and spending all the day immersed in new, energetic endeavours is not to be bettered in any age. Unless. . .

Stepping from the concrete and tarmac and the petrol fumes, from confinement in steel boxes and in regulations, a little frame of metal with two wheels awaits and no more power than your thighs can supply awaits, but what power those thighs can supply even unmetalled, out to the road where a subtle increase in the press of your feet set you at dazzling speed along the lane to new horizons.

On foot you are part of the land, connected intimately with creation in all its wonders, if not feeling every bump (not if you have good boots) then still rising and falling with each rise and fall of the breathing path, tempering your walk to whatever the ground provides in mud, rock, bog, heath, sand or water. Each moment is yours and you are challenging yourself alone. If you walk all day across twenty miles, you feel the richness of every yard as you are part of it. You feel alive because you have exercised the very essence of life and been once again a part of nature, in which you were born.

On a bicycle, twenty miles is nothing: I have zipped off to have lunch forty miles away. The speed shames the plodding feet, but it is all the same strength of the same legs, not faked by a machine, not burning choking oil into the good air but all from the force of your own muscles; you own every thrust, turn, bump and swerve. When you want to stop, you stop – you do not need to patrol around to find a car park and fiddle with change, but just haul your bicycle onto the verge and pull out a sandwich. Where even a bicycle cannot go, lift it onto your shoulder and carry it to the next bridleway or road (now just try doing that with a car). This is a machine of liberty: nothing but the clothes on your back and the light bike beneath you, and off you go.

So, bike or boots; wheels or walking? Make your own decision, but stop reading this and get out there and find out.

Author: RB