Welcome to 2022! Traditionally, the first or second post of any year is my Christmas Adventure With Tom, depending on whether I have time to finish it in time for the first post of the New Year, and this year here it is up first – with some changes. Of course there are changes. We’re still… More Two Bears and a Barnacle
While I was at my cottage last week, in a rural bit of Somerset, I wanted to go for a walk. I had my daily 2km to walk – yes, even when I’m on holiday – and I’d invested in the cutest map. I knew Ordnance Survey offer custom maps (see my Single Map series… More A custom map, a muddy field and an unexpected hillfort
I think it’s time for the Polar Bear Winter Festival to veer sharply from the wistful (“I miss Iceland and Svalbard and still can’t travel!”) to the everyday. I try to be outdoorsy and walking in winter is definitely a thing you can do. Enjoying the great outdoors is fine in summer. Everyone wants to… More Walking in winter
It is November 4th and I walked 1000km in 2021! (Ok, it’s November 15th and I finished a week and a half ago but I needed my medal to arrive before I posted this) Last year I did a similar challenge, aiming for 500km of exercise in 2020. I achieved that by September and was… More I walked 1000km in 2021!
I’ve just watched someone in all seriousness tell a fairly large following that you can use Google Earth to plan a hike and therefore I need to announce categorically that no, you cannot! And thus here is how to plan a hike.. This is about the route, by the way. It’s not about equipment, experience,… More How to plan a hike
After my last post about hiking solo, today I’m taking you along on a solo hike! I needed a Dartmoor logbook walk (10+km, in Open country – there are lots of other details but that’s the important bit) but I also wanted quite a gentle walk and my guidebook suggested this one, a Princetown branch… More A gentle Princetown branch railway walk | Camping on Dartmoor June 2021
My first post-lockdown real thing was that I met up with my friend Catherine for a countryside walk a couple of weeks ago. Catherine is a nature connection guide and feminine rewilding coach, a retreat host, a wanderer and an artist and all that makes her a very good companion for a country walk. She’d… More A Single Map: A walk and a nature lesson
I haven’t done A Single Map in a while – well, not on the blog. I’ve done walks on my map most weeks in real life. We met a lot of cows on this most recent walk! We were using the Sturminster Newton walks again – the last of the five long ones – but… More A Single Map: walking with cows
I’ll do a real YouTube-circa-2014 “what’s in my bag?” blog next time I go to Dartmoor but today a follow-up to “what to carry while out walking” from the other day: what’s in my first aid kit? I would recommend carrying a first aid kit whenever you go out walking. I mean, I don’t bother… More Outdoors 101: What’s in my first aid kit?
In the last Walking 101 post, I was mainly making the point that you don’t need a lot of stuff or to spend a lot of money to get outdoors and get into walking. This post is “what to carry on a day hike”, aka all the stuff you do need. But you still don’t need… More Outdoors 101: What to carry on a day hike