I have walked in the hills since I was a little girl, exploring the Long Mynd in Shropshire and the Quantocks and Exmoor in the South-West. I love strolling along, enjoying the fresh air and the countryside, often in the company of my partner or a group of friends. There is nothing quite like a flask of coffee and a cheese roll with your favourite people on a bright autumnal day in the Peak District.
If you are new to walking, here are a few tips to get you started:
Know where you are going, especially if walking alone. If you are a new walker, choose a well walked route, a country park or a trail such as the Monsal Trail to start with. Country parks often have waymarked trails and maps to go with them, a good way to learn how to read a map. We use a collection of great walk books which give us ideas and describe the route; I recommend the Jarrod series as their instructions are clear and accompanied by maps. We also take a paper map with us; it doesn’t rely on a signal or full battery to help you out if you get lost and we always check the route before we go, unless it is a very familiar route. Take note of the green dotted lines indicating a ‘right of way,’ keep to these paths as landowners are not always walker friendly.
Check the weather and daylength, particularly if you are walking in hills or mountains. Walking in the rain can be miserable and poor visibility dangerous, walking on a very hot day is often very tiring. We’ve only been caught out once by the weather, cloud came out of nowhere when we were walking on Kinder Scout, we could barely see to put one foot in front of another. Not a nice experience.
Wear the right clothing for the conditions you are walking in. Flip flops and shorts are great on the beach, but no good over slippery rocks, through muddy puddles or along a path with nettles each side. You don’t need to spend a fortune – waterproof coats and simple walking boots can be bought quite cheaply if you shop around and are a good starting point once you move away from country parks. I always take a hat of some sort and a waterproof coat because weather conditions can change quickly. The coat will keep out wind as well as rain. Wear several layers so you can take clothes on and off depending on how you feel – this can change over the course of a walk.
Take food and drink, your phone and a torch, even on short walks – sometimes short walks become longer walks and these may come in handy. Stopping to have a drink or eat a snack can leave you feeling revived and ready for the next part of a walk.
Enjoy your time in the great outdoors – walk at a comfortable pace, pause to take in the scenery and enjoy the company of others if you are walking with someone.
Where have we been skipping peaks this week?
The Longshaw estate
On Tuesday, the weather was not great, drizzle and mist, so we chose a very simple, short walk with clear paths and a nice café. The Longshaw Estate offers a combination of tended gardens, woodland paths and some heathland. Great variety and it’s difficult to get lost. The café sells great veggie sausage cobbs and coffee. We enjoyed an hour or so pottering around until we felt a little cold and wet so we went home.
Tideswell and Cresswell Dales
The sun came out eventually, so we decided to go for an afternoon stroll through Tideswell dale. As we were staying in Tideswell and didn’t have to drive, we could make the most of the afternoon. Tideswell Dale is a small, quiet dale with a river and towering limestone cliffs. If you follow the path down, you come to Litton Mill and then on to Cressbrook Dale. Here, you can walk along the banks of the River Wye undisturbed by traffic and crowds of visitors. The dale is prone to flooding and walkers must follow the route knowing they may not reach the bridge at the end, or may have to wade through the river to get to there. Limestone cliffs tower above your head as they do in Tideswell Dale, but this Dale is more wooded. Far above is the Monsal Trail, following the route of an old railway line and much busier. On this occasion, the path was very muddy but not flooded so we walked to the bridge at the end. We planned to cross the bridge and finish with a circular walk across local fields, but forgot the map! As the sun was sinking lower in the sky ,we decided to retrace our steps rather than risk getting lost in the darkness. It’s always important to have plan B up your sleeve! Besides, in such a beautiful valley, this was no hardship.
Castleton, Cave Dale and Mam Tor
Castleton is a popular tourist destination, with lots of shops and pubs, but most visitors are left far behind once you start climbing into the heart of Cave Dale. The walking is quite tough, much of the path becomes a stream after rainfall and the surface of the path is very uneven. However, the scenery is dramatic. Towering cliffs with an old castle at the top, used as a filming location a number of times. Once you leave the dale, the walking gets easier and mostly flat with easy paths crossing moorland and farmland, until you reach the bottom of Mam Tor, a local landmark and very steep climb. However, the climb is well worth it for the sense of achievement and view when you get to the top, with the whole of the Hope Valley spread out below you. The rest of the walk is downhill all the way, sometimes a little steep, back into Castleton again and a well-earned coffee (or beer).
I hope I have inspired you to dust off your walking shoes and step out into the autumn sunshine. As the leaves turn from green to golden brown our countryside, rivals anywhere in the world.
Evening mist in Monsal Dale.
Skeats Strength 