Written by Two swans and six dusty-grey cygnets mew and whistle as they glide in single file along the canal. Silver birches wiggle their leaves in the gentlest of autumn breezes. Auburn, ochre, russet and shades in between glow in the afternoon sun. It’s time for a sit down and a cuppa. I’m not in a national […]
The big dining room has picture windows with gorgeous views of the River Caerfanell in its winding valley under the bulk of Twyn Du (Black Down). The sitting room has a wood-burning stove that’s throwing out lots of heat and as our group of 19, spread around several comfy sofas, start on pre-dinner drinks, the […]
On this windless autumn Saturday, the landscape is curiously hushed. Occasionally, a tiny chorus of coal tits gathers to chat in the pines above my head, but otherwise it’s soundless, the muffled stillness willing me to slow my pace. As the track turns from soil to sand, I skitter over smooth grey rocks to reach a […]
Scorching sunlight glinted through the windows as the bartender slid a frosted glass of Cruzcampo across the aluminium bar. “Ocho meses de invierno, cuatro de infierno,” he sighed with a nod towards the heat-shimmering lane outside. “Eight months of winter, four months of hell” is how the inhabitants of Extremadura describe their climate. Your timing […]
Winning tip: wild camping and walking in the Pyrenees The best ever walk I’ve been on was actually two weeks of walking, along the GR11 on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees from Candanchú to La Guingueta d’Àneu. We got the train to France, packed food for a week and restocked half way, and wild […]
At 8.45am, I stroll down the steps of The Queen at Chester hotel and into the midweek flow. The roads are full of delivery vans, the station is lined with taxis and the pavements are busy with commuters. I move among them lightly, a roamer bound for distant lands. Well, distant-ish: I’m a coffee to […]
Rare rainforest in the Lake District Autumn is often wet – so why not embrace this, and visit one of Britain’s temperate rainforests in Borrowdale, near Keswick. Such forests are rare globally as well as in Britain. Not only can you observe the gorgeous autumn hues from the leaves of ash, birch and oak but […]
I first learned about the Écrins national park in relation to a specific nature reserve within it. The réserve intégrale du Lauvitel was established in 1995 to “monitor the natural dynamics of ecosystems” with all human influence removed. This so-called wilderness area was one of the first of its kind in Europe. A video showed […]
Hadrian’s Wall has perhaps the most single-minded personality of all the National Trails, tracing as it does the 84 miles from Bowness-on-Solway to Wallsend, which represented the north-west frontier of the Roman empire for nearly 300 years. It was built by the Roman army (the soldiers dug the ditches, quarried the stones and laid them) […]