2017 Walking Totals

 As we took a gap year in 2017, I planned to get in a decent amount of walking.

• In April I did two long stretches along the Clevedon Way
• May saw me walking the Ridgeway
• June saw us visit Marloes and the Pembrokeshire Coast
• July saw us exploring the Yorkshire Dales
• The 2nd half of the year saw trips abroad to Ireland and Barcelona, which involved walking while exploring - hence keeping the monthly averages high.

Ride 'n' Stride 2017

Ride 'n' Stride is an annual sponsored event where you have the choice of riding (horse or bike) or striding and you visit as many churches as possible.  

This year we chose to walk (and catch the bus back).  Part of the fun is planning an efficient route trying to get in as many churches as possible.  This year we skipped the Southcote churches while doing more in the town centre.

Avebury

A placeholder for a walk around Avebury

More details and photos to come ...

Yorkshire Dales - Keld to Muker (including Pennine Way)

While in the Yorkshire Dales, I wanted to get at least one good walk in, and selected Keld to Muker, going down Swaledale. By accident we ended up doing the Pennine Way, rather than the valley bottom walk I'd originally planned.  I also noticed that technically we walked a bit of the coast to coast !

A choice of routes

In the end, we did the following ...

• Pennine Way to Kisdon Farm
• Corpse Way to Muker
• Hartlakes and Ivelet Side, including Coast to Coast back to Keld

Our actual route - as recorded by Viewranger.

St Ann's Head (to be completed)

A placeholder for St Ann's Head  - a walk during our Pembroke Coast National Park holiday.

More details and photos to come ...

Stackpole Estate, including Barafundle Beach (to be completed)

A placeholder for our exploration of the Stackpole Estate - a walk during our Pembroke Coast National Park holiday.

More details and photos to come ...

Total Daily Steps : 27,020

Marloes Peninsula (to be completed)

A placeholder for Marloes Peninsula - one of the main walks on our Pembroke Coast National Park holiday.

More details and photos to come ...

Marloes Mere (to be completed)

A placeholder for Marloes Mere - the first walk of our Pembroke Coast National Park holiday.

More details and photos to come ...

Ridgeway - Day 5 - Goring to Wallingford

An excuse to continue walking the ridgeway, this was in reality just a short morning walk to join Val who was shopping with friends in Wallingford.  They had dropped me off in Goring so that I could walk the Thames side stretch.

Pevensey Castle

This was a short, circular route while on Holiday in Eastbourne.  We were staying so close to the Castle, it seem silly not to walk to it.  The Castle was once on the coast, and was William the Conqueror's landing place.  Thanks to coastal changes and land reclamation, it is now over a mile inland.

We spent a lot of time exploring both the Castle and the villages of both Westham and Pevensey, so the route shows a lot of 'squiggles' while there.

Our Route as recorded in ViewRanger

Ridgeway - Day 4 - Bury Road (nr West Ilsley) to Goring

The fourth (and currently final) day of my Ridgeway Walk.

No detours today, with a bit of an anti-climatic end on low level roadside paths through Streatley.

My route recorded by ViewRanger

Ridgeway - Day 3 - White Horse Hill to Bury Road (nr West Ilsley)

Day 3 of my Ridgeway walk.

Only two detours today - the Devil's Punchbowl, (the third I've now visited out of the five (?) in the country), and Segsbury Camp - another Iron Age hill fort.

My route, as recorded by ViewRanger

Ridgeway - Day 2 - Ogbourne St George to White Horse Hill

Day 2 of my Ridgeway walk.  My only minor detours today were explore to Liddington Castle, Wayland's Smithy and White Horse hill, consisting of Uffington Castle, Dragon Hill & the White Horse itself.

My route, as recorded by ViewRanger.

Ridgeway - Day 1 - Overton Hill to Ogbourne St George

Today I started my long held goal of walking the Ridgeway.

It felt silly going all the way to Avebury and not going around the World Heritage sites there, so I added an additional section, putting an extra 5 miles and two and a half hours onto the start of the walk.  Val walked with me for most of this extra bit - so I even appear in some of the photos !

Once on the Ridgeway, I did about 10 miles to Ogbourne St George where hopefully Val would be waiting for me with the car !

The ViewRanger recording of my route.

The places visited before the official Ridgeway start (we didn't go to Windmill Hill)

Cleveland Way : Whitby to Staithes

My second long Cleveland Way walk - this time from Whitby back to Staithes - which the 'wrong way' when compared to the direction in which the Cleveland way is normally described.

Again the route starts and ends at sea level yet travels along cliff tops.  It returns back down to sea level for the beaches at Sandsend and Runswick Bay.

We drove from our holiday cottage in Staithes to the Whitby park and ride & took the bus into town. So my route starts at Whitby bus station.  Again, Val & her Mum drove home after a day in town.

My route as recorded by ViewRanger 

Cleveland Way : Saltburn to Staithes

Walking part of the costal section of the Cleveland Way - from Saltburn-by-the-sea to States.

The route starts at sea level (Saltburn) and follows cliff tops while returning to sea level twice (Skinningrove and Staithes).  It includes the highest point on the east coast - Boulby Cliff.

I left Val and her Mum in Saltburn to drive back at their leisure to our holiday cottage in Staithes, while I walked the costal route back.

My route as recorded by ViewRanger

Staithes, Port Mulgrave and Dalehouse

A 4 mile circular walk taking in a short part of the Cleveland Way.

A photo of a crumpled photocopy of the leaflet of the map of my route.

It covered a surprising variety of terrain from wind swept cliff top to deep wooded valley.  While the detailed instructions didn't seem to match reality, everything was very well signposted.

My actual route took in a lot more cliff top.

Theale Lakes

A 'Walking Saturday' walk around Theale Lakes.

Here's the official route :-

but as you can see from the ViewRanger version of what I actually walked, the book is out of date, as one of the Lakes has now been filled in !

Basildon Park : Blue Route

A placeholder for our walk around Basildon Park