A year of walks (111/365)

[white_hart]

It's a year since I abandoned my attempt at Couch to 5k after falling over and spraining my wrist, and decided to go for walks before work instead. I haven't been for a walk every day since then: some days I've chosen to start work early so I can take time for a swim later on; a few times last summer I went for early swims at Port Meadow instead; there have been a few days when it has just been too wet; and for some of Michaelmas Term I was in the office a couple of days a week, and although I parked in Summertown and walked from there, commute-walking isn't the same as walk-walking. I have, however, tracked more than 200 walks in Runkeeper; last year I clocked up just over 500 miles and this year I've already done almost 250 in three and a half months.

There aren't a lot of options for 3-4 mile walks starting from my front door. Down the canal towpath to the nature reserve and back. Up the canal towpath to the Jolly Boatman, through the woods to Thrupp and back along the towpath. Across the fields or along the cycle path to Begbroke, along the bridleway and back via Yarnton; across the fields or along the cycle path to Begbroke, up to the top of the hill and back the way I didn't come; across the fields or along the cycle path to Begbroke, up to the top of the hill and down the other way and back via Yarnton (that is one of my favourites, and is the one where you can just see Oxford, but it's actually four and a half miles so needs a bit of extra time). Through the streets to the church and back via the fields and the canal towpath (you can go either side of the fields, and with a bit of extra time you can go across the meadows and through the woods instead); through the streets to the church and down to the river (though that's my least favourite, as you have to go back through the streets which tend to be getting busier by then, so I've only tended to do that one when it's meant I was walking towards a stunning sunrise rather than having my back to it). I must have done each of these dozens of times in the last twelve months, and yet I haven't got bored, because there's always something new to see.

I've learnt the lay of my few square miles of countryside in a way I never thought I would. I've been surprised to realise just how few walks there are where I can't see the church spire at all, or the Forest Hill transmitter. I've found the one spot where you can see the spires of the city centre, which I haven't seen from closer to since last March. I've watched the seasons move through a full cycle; I've learnt to recognise far more plants and trees than I could before, and I've seen wildlife both expected (deer, muntjacs, hares, skylarks, red kites) and unexpected (otters!). I've taken a lot of photos, and I think I've got much better at it.

Comments

[green_knight]

Love the canal boat picture - great perspective and lovely atmosphere!

I don't think there are many places where you can have _more_ walks than that. 4-5 rounds is the best I've had when I was living in the middle of the countryside, but middle-of-the-countryside sometimes means 'the one footpath there and back' or 'risk your life on the road for 20 minutes before you come to a footpath'. Offroad all-weather walking? Sounds as if you have better than average.

Here it's 'through the housing estate along the 6-lane North Circular for a short bit, over the bridge and around the park' with options of clockwise and anti-clockwise as well as 'left of the hedge/right of the hedge' as the only alternatives. (The park sits along both sides of a river in a concrete channel. The river is full of rubbish. It's the best we've got. I'm glad we have it.)

[white_hart]

Yes, I think you're right. Pre-pandemic, we used to go for walks a lot at weekends but they almost always involved driving or getting a bus somewhere else to walk, and we only did the local walks occasionally. The last year has made very very glad to live where I do, though! (I think that Oxford in general is pretty good - even in the city centre there's lots of green space and pocket-sized nature reserves in the more urban suburbs - but being on the edge is good.)

(Also, for about a month "offroad walking" was basically "putting on wellies and wading through mud".)

[antisoppist]

I live in a Walkers are Welcome village surrounded by countryside and have a lot of walks from the doorstep but there is a limit in finding circuits that fit in the time and energy available. And many of them begin with the Bog Field which can be very wade-y.

We have a 26 mile circular Way around us and in theory there are footpaths that radiate out to it so you could walk a kind of segment at a time but that would still take more time and energy than I can manage as a break in the working day. In the pandemic everyone has been doing the same variations on the 3 shorter loops for exercise and dog walks and runs. But I am lucky that it is there on the doorstep and as you say doing the same walk frequently means you notice the changing nature more.

[white_hart]

The first field past the canal bridge from my house is definitely a Bog Field, but you can avoid it half the time by going out on the cycle path instead.

There are longer walks I could do, too, but I can't fit them in before work.

[cmcmck]

I know what you mean about finding ever more local countryside- this business has had us finding places we didn't know existed.

Love the one of the cut.

[white_hart]

Yes, and you see the places you already knew in a different light as they become more and more familiar.

[norfolkian]

Some lovely photos and I have had a similar experience with wildlife. I need to post about the woodpeckers I've seen lately!

[white_hart]

Woodpeckers! How lovely. I quite often hear them but haven't managed to spot any.

[mountainkiss]

I hope you will write a book one day.

[mountainkiss]

Also I really really love the canal boat picture.

[white_hart]

Thank you.

[callmemadam]

I love reading about your walks and seeing the photos. You are turning into a nature writer.
It's ridiculous that I live in the country yet would have to drive somewhere else to walk. Round here, it's all roads without pavements and land is privately owned.

[white_hart]

That is ridiculous! We do seem to be quite well-off for footpaths.

[girlyswot]

Knowing one place really well is, for me, much more fascinating than constantly exploring new and different places.

[white_hart]

I would quite like the opportunity to explore some new and different places, or even some slightly more distant but still familiar ones, but there is definitely a compensation in coming to know this landscape so well.

[girlyswot]

Yes, I'm sure!

But also, even when that becomes possible again, you will still live in your local place and the walks there can continue, even if not quite daily.

[alithea]

It has been wonderful to follow your outings via your write ups and particularly your gorgeous photos.

Until we made it to the new house, I spent almost every day doing the exact same walk round our local park. It was lovely to see how the seasons changed but, nice as Dundee's parks are, I am enjoying having more variety of routes now. There's a whole network of paths out the top of our local park here which I shall have fun exploring over the summer, and a lovely flat walk round the loch (altho I won't be doing that on sunny weekends because it's already getting busy and the caravan park next to it hasn't reopened yet).