I’m lucky enough to live in, what we call in the UK, the countryside.
There is very little of the UK which does not have the stamp of humanity upon it. Our countryside is composed of farmland, stone walls, managed forest and the like.
In other parts of the world you have the chance to visit places where there’s no evidence of humans anywhere. People have not built things, knocked things down or altered things in any way. It’s the same now as it would have been hundreds of years ago.
Given the huge population to space ratio of the UK, this is not possible. We took great pride during the industrial revolution in putting entire forests into furnaces so that we could make large metal objects.
In short, the UK does not have much that’s not created, managed or watched over by humans.
This does not mean that it’s not fantastically beautiful. It is.
Where other countries have soaring mountains, we have rolling hills. In other places there’s mile after mile of unbroken views, we have quaint villages with cottages and mediaeval land partitions.
I love the fact that you don’t have to walk far before you come up against a church which has been there for a thousand years or more. Most likely the door will be open and you can go inside and explore.
Recently I decided that I’m going to walk more. I’ve managed to keep this up. Several long (ish) walks a week.
When I started to do this, I’d assumed that I’d be walking the same paths after a short time. That I’d run out of trails close to me. I was so wrong.
Here’s where the internet collides successfully with nature. I downloaded a few apps to a phone which are full of user generated walks. You zoom in to your location, hit search and… become amazed!
What I discovered is that right outside my front door, a silent legion of enthusiastic walkers have been laying down walking routes for me to following along. They’ve been uploading data about the difficulty of the walks, information about distance, and photos… so many photos. There’s dozens of walks, hundreds in fact. All within a stones throw of my house.
It’s wonderful.
I’m staggered that there’s a lifetime of local walks waiting for me, all curated for me.
Yesterday I did this short one, and courtesy of the app, I know that:
- I walked for 1h 39m 37s
- I covered 8.65km
- The ground gained 50.6m in elevation
- I did this at an average speed of 5.2km/h
What’s more wonderful is that no matter where you zoom in on the map, whichever part of the UK, in fact whichever part of the planet Earth, you land upon, the same appears to be true.
If you fancy getting out more, but never knew where to go, now you have no excuse. These walks are right there waiting to be explored. Long or short, strenuous or easy.
If you ask me in the comments which app I use, I’ll let you know.
Here’s some pictures I took:
Leave a Reply