What to take on your first walk.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post on how to plan your first walk. Now I’m sure you’re all sat at home thinking, ‘that’s all well and good, I’ve planned my walk but what on earth do I take with me?’ Well help is at hand. This week I will cover some of the things you need to make your walks more pleasurable. Fundamentally all you need to go walking is two legs. However, there is plenty of kit out there to enable you to go stay comfortable in increasing extremes of weather and terrain, depending on how much you are willing to pay. And that is what this is about really, cost vs comfort. You can go walking in any gear you have in your wardrobe but if it rains will it keep you dry? If it’s cold will it keep you warm?

Walking shoes for good weather.

Probably the single most important piece of kit is footwear. This is what keeps the world away from your feet. Footwear choice depends markedly upon the season. The fairer the weather and terrain you plan on walking in the more you can get away with. I usually use a sturdy pair of walking trainers in the summer and a full ankle support leather boot during the winter. A good walking trainer will be well ventilated, comfortable and have a grippy sole. A leather walking boot will be waterproof (if well looked after), warm and again will have good grip in the wet. Walking in ordinary trainers may be fine in the summer but at the first sign of inclement weather or rough terrain you will be quite uncomfortable. If you choose one piece of kit to spend a bit more money on it’s boots.

Walking boots for more inclement weather.

Your clothing again depends on the weather. If you are only ever going to walk when you are 100% it’s not going to rain you can get away without a waterproof. If you don’t live in the Atacama Desert however you’ll need something to keep you dry in unexpected downpours. The problem is not keeping water out, that’s easy. A bin bag with some arm and head holes will do the job. The difficult part is making it breathable. If it isn’t you’ll saturate from the inside through profuse sweating. If you’ve ever warn rubber gloves for any length of time, you’ll know what I mean. A full set of waterproof top and bottoms are becoming cheaper nowadays but it’s always worth spending that extra bit. Again this should be a purchase that lasts you many years as long as you take care for them.

Gore Tex works better when it's garishly bright. Fact.

For your top half you should layer accordingly. I find it’s best to combine a t-shirt with a thin warm top and a thick warm top. That way you can escalate in warmth depending on the weather. Don’t be tempted to put on everything as soon as you start. It’s actually best to be cold when you begin. You’ll be surprised how quickly you get warm. You really want to avoid getting sweaty as this will make you very cold if you stop and it’s windy. I wear a wicking t-shirt as my base. This draws sweat away from the body. Then I have a thin fleece and a thick fleece.

Jeans are bad m'kay.

Do not wear jeans! I cannot overstate this enough. Denim will give you bad rub after a very short period of time. If it gets wet, you may as well wear heavy sandpaper. Wave bye bye to the skin on your legs as it is replaced with a corned beef looking substance. A cheap option is tracksuit bottoms, the thin material, not the thick towel ones. But then you’re only an energy drink and baseball cap away from chavdom. The only other alternative is an actual pair of walking trousers. These are not flattering as you’ve probably seen from our photos but they are cheap and comfy. Make sure they are nice and baggy around the thighs for leaping over gates or you’ll get fresh ventilation between the legs. At the same time make sure they are not too loose around the waist all you’ll be forever pulling them up. It’s good if they come up quite high to keep your shirt tucked in. Again you’ll look as cool as your Mum trying to beatbox but it’ll stop your bag rubbing on your lower back.     

   

Bags. Great for carrying stuff.

Which leads me to back packs. Every extra layer of clothing over your basic level of decency should fit into the bag you are carrying. It may be cold after a frosty night at 8’ o’clock in the morning but after the sun’s come out and you’ve been walking uphill for half an hour you may regret those extra layers if you’ve got nothing to put them in. Conversely, just because it’s warm when you leave the car, it may be blowing a gale the other side of a hill. I find the best way to figure out what to take is to fill your bag with everything you may need to make sure it fits, then dress accordingly from the bag’s contents. The only real factors in deciding what bag to buy are, is it big enough and is it comfortable. It doesn’t really matter what it looks like when you’re cutting about with your t-shirt tucked into your frumpy walking trousers.

Caps. Not always chavvy.

Other items you should take are water, food and a map and compass. Even if you don’t know how to use a compass it’ll help you orientate your map. Take an emergency snack such as a choccy bar on top of your lunch. If you run out of energy this may help you get back. Be aware you’ll probably eat this regardless if there’s an emergency or not. As rule of thumb I’d say take a pint of water for each hour you are out. Energy drinks should only ever be used to supplement water intake and preferably never drank, anywhere, ever. Something I always wear is a cap. No, I’m not a chav. It is just very good for keeping the sun off your face and when it rains it stops the hood of your waterproof falling over your eyes, which trust me, does happen.

Please don’t rush out and buy all this kit at once and then decide you hate walking because it’s expensive. It almost better to avoid this advice initially. Go out in a pair of jeans and trainers with no bag and horrible cheap waterproofs. Then you will really appreciate the money you spent when you eventually do buy the right kit. Trust me, I’ve been there. Have you ever been caught out by bad equipment choices? If so let us know in the comments below. Until next time.


#walkinggear #walkingkit #hikinggear #hikingkit #whattotakewalking #whattotakehiking #learnaboutwalking

19th March 2016 Dulverton to Molland

Slightly different this week, it’s just me and my dawg. Bea hurt herself in college playing bouncy netball. I believe the Americans call it Bear-skit-bahl or something. Anyway, she went over on her ankle and so couldn’t come. She’s at home with her foot up on some ice. As a consequence of my not being able to take selfies, there will be lots of landscapes and Chuck pictures this week. On the plus side there was a pub stop. Some of this walk encompasses bits of the previous walk as I wanted to go to the pub we never got to the week before. I’ll try and gloss over those bits you’ve already seen.

Figure of eight. Follow the arrows.

“Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.”
John Harvey Jones, businessman (1924–2008)

As I was on my own this week I thought I’d try something a bit different. Instead of planning an exact route I just pick a start point and a destination then navigated my way there on the ground. This walk starts from a small car park just North East of Dulverton. It’s a little awkwardly shaped and a bit of poor parking can seriously hamper the number of cars you can get in. There’s also a rather bad ground clearance as the underside of my car discovered. Don’t say anything, it’s on finance. But as usual, it is free to park there.

The car park. Note chassis scraping stones.

Our destination was the London Inn in Molland about six or seven miles away depending on which way we went. We set off along River Barle down a wide stone road. The path is quite upsy-downsy and sometimes strays some distance from the river but it gives lots of different perspective of the water. The water is beautifully clear and there are lots of mini waterfalls. This path leads to where the river meets Dane’s Brook where we crossed the previous week. This time however we took the lower path. Well, I did anyway. Chuck decided to take to the water for most of the way.

Not exactly Niagra Falls, but very pretty.

The map showed that we would have to cross a ford up ahead at some point. There is always the slight apprehension that the water will not be as shallow as you are expecting, especially as this was a bridleway for horses and not a footpath. A horse will happily wade through deeper water than a person. Well I assume at least never having ridden a horse. When I got there it was good news and bad. The bad news was the water was far deeper than my boots were tall. The good news was that there was a bridge right next to the ford which wasn’t marked on the map. Result. Remember, a map is only as accurate as when it was made. The ground changes, so change your maps regularly.

Bridges are better than fords.

Climbing out of the steep sided valley the ground began to transition from woods to open moorland. It was a lovely pale yellow and quite stark and bleak in a beautiful kind of way after being in the lush green wood. This was East Anstey Common. Seeing as we did West Anstey Common last week, I thought I’d try and collect the set. Unfortunately, there is no North and South Anstey Common. We headed along some of the road we went along last week but this time without a constant stream of racing 4x4s, which made for a much more relaxing walk. We headed south and went along a small road that turned into a footpath. This went through what used to be a wood according to the map but had recently been heavily logged. The bridleway had also been diverted but this actually made the route shorter. This time the two fords across the water were easily passable with a pair of sturdy walking boots or a good leap.

Transition from wood to moor.

Through the trees we came out on a rather lovely clearing which led up a hill. From here you could see quite the community of large houses dotted around the countryside. It certainly looked like an appealing place to live. The track bizarrely took us directly through someone’s garden. Then along a very long drive back to the road. There appeared to be quite an ancient looking farming system going on in this area with the earth showing signs of work from long ago. It was quite Wiltshire-esque.

Nice place to live.

Down the road another footpath took us across some fields and then we would be in Molland. Well that was the idea but someone had put some rather excitable horses in a field that the footpath goes through. I personally don’t mind horses but Chuck got kicked by a cow when he was a puppy and to him everything big with four legs is a dog. A big dog. So there was a bit of a standoff at the gate. The horses were happy to get their noses rubbed but Chuck was having none of it. He was barking, pulling on the lead and getting quite upset. So we backtracked across the field and got onto the road via a gate that was secured with a good old Devon latch. Some string in a bow.

Chuck in a rare moment of stasis.

Molland is a tiny little place. It’s a farmyard with a few houses and a church. I almost mistook the pub for one of these houses. It really doesn’t look very pub like from the outside, to the point where it looked like it may have closed a few years ago. I was quite disappointed until I saw the lights were on. Not only had it not closed down, it was open. Inside it looked a lot more like a pub. A very well stocked pub. It was possibly larger inside than the external dimensions really allowed. Spooky.

A memorial rock to rugby player Froude Hancock on West Anstey Common.

The landlady immediately fell head over heels in love with Chuck. She had her own German Shepherd and so began a long conversation stretching from dogs to gin. This was a good gin bar. I tried Wicked Wolf, an Exmoor gin I’d seen advertised recently. It was alright but it was a touch citrusy, like there was too much lemon squeezed in it. After a few drinks I realised we had spent far too long in the pub and really needed to start heading back to the car. Across a few field I found a nice place to stop for lunch, watching some lambs gambolling around. Chuck was fascinated. Then followed an hour of crossing the moor. Navigation was not really required as we could see for miles in every direction.

Chuck keeps watch of the sheep while I get my scran on.

Again the path back to Dulverton was blocked by more horses. This caused me to take a detour along a footpath which just crept off the bottom of the map. Of course the bit that was off the map was slightly more confusing than I expected. There were two footpaths in completely the wrong direction and a farmyard in the way of the right direction. With no sign of a path through the farmyard I decided to take the road, which I hoped would lead to Dulverton. Thankfully it did, although I still have no idea where the other footpath went.

So close to having a clean dog for the car.

I’d have loved to have stopped for one more in Dulverton, which has some great pubs but time was cracking on. We took a quick excursion to the top of the hill in Burridge Wood to see the hill fort. To be honest though, it’s not really worth the trip. Any remnants of the fort are long gone. There is a ditch which might possibly have been part of it but all in all I was fairly underwhelmed. This walk was an interesting exercise in orienteering from one point to another. It could possibly have ended in disaster but that’s half the fun.  Have you ever set off anywhere having no idea where you’re going? Let us know how it went. Until next time.

Planning Your First Walk

So now you’ve got the gist of what we do each week wouldn’t you like to have a go yourself? Thought so. Navigation is a subject matter that can be quite simple or can be horrendously complex. At its most basic it is the process of getting from A – B, or in our case from A – A via some nice scenery and a pub. Getting from A – A is in fact a great way to learn. If you start small enough you can navigate with A still in view. As your confidence grows you can get further away from your start location.

I'd say we're about here.

There are several considerations when choosing a route. The most important that will affect every other decision is; how long do you want to walk for? This is not the same as; how far do you want to walk? Five miles in the Lake District can take far longer than ten miles in Lincolnshire. I would suggest your first walk is about ninety minutes, that way if you underestimate your abilities you’ll still get a good hour and if you overestimate your abilities you won’t be back the next day some time. Naismith’s rule states that; you should cover 4km in every hour adding a minute for every contour line crossed. Great, but you’re not going to see much at that pace and what’s a contour line? And didn’t we defeat Napoleon so we didn't have to use a kilometre anyway? I would say allow for walking at around 2 miles an hour. Whilst this may sound slow, this is an average. Remember, you will stop to look at things, check your map, climb fences, and get lost etc.

Saying NO! to kilometres since 1815.

So with this in mind our first walk should be around three miles. After a few walks you’ll begin to get a good grasp of how quickly you cover certain types of ground. The easiest way to check distance is to use the edge of a piece paper to measure your route and then place it against the distance scale at the bottom of the map. Start with a corner of the paper at your starting point and place the edge along the route until it bends. Mark the paper here. Then move the paper round so it follows to the next bend and make another mark. Keep going all around the route until you get back to the beginning. Place the corner of the paper on the distance measure at the bottom of the map and hey presto, this is how far your route is. The video below explains it all. If this is too tedious just use Google Earth like I do. Eventually you’ll be able to do this by eye using the grid lines but that’s for another post.

So what are we looking for on our map? Depends on what map you’ve got. We’re quite lucky in the UK that we have Ordnance Survey. This means the whole country is covered by a standardised system of mapping. This is certainly not the case in many other countries. I tend to use 1:25000 scale maps. These are called the Explorer Map and come with an orange cover. The alternative is the Landranger Map. These are 1:50000 scale and have a pink cover. The Landranger has the advantage that it covers four times the area of the Explorer but this also means it’s four times less detailed. This is a great aid to getting lost. The Explorer shows individual fields which can be invaluable at times. The downside with the Explorer is that they come in many different shapes and sizes but all cost the same. The larger maps are also printed on both sides which is phenomenally annoying if your walk covers both sides. Try unfolding and refolding your map in a stiff breeze when it’s raining. I get all my maps from dash4it. Theirs are so much cheaper than everywhere else. I don’t know how they do it and don’t really care. Expect for an Explorer map to pay about £5 there and £8.99 everywhere else.

The Explorer Series 1:25000

Now we have our map we need to find a path. On the Explorer these are represented by green dashed lines. The smaller dashes are footpaths and the longer dashes denote a bridleway. Whilst both are perfectly permissive, a bridleway is primarily designed for horses and may feature some water features which are impassable to those on foot who don’t want waterlogged boots. But bridleways are generally more open and have better access to enable a horse to transit them. Some footpaths can be quite a fight to get through if the council hasn’t maintained them. So we are looking for somewhere on the map where the green dashed lines make a loop. Other routes we can transit are roads but you’ll need to be aware how each type of road is represented on the map. Check the key on the side of the map to see how each type of road is represented on the map. The smaller and quieter the road, the better.

The map, completely explained in one simple, easy to follow diagram.

Now we have our loop we need to check it is passable all the way around. The major showstopper here as already mentioned is water. This is represented as twisty blue lines on the map. I say twisty as they shouldn’t be confused with the grid lines which cover the whole map. Britain isn’t covered by one kilometre square islands. Again, I’ll cover these in another post. If there is water we need to check there is a crossing. This is either via footbridge or a ford. A ford for the uninitiated is a part of the waterway that’s shallow enough to walk through. Obviously this depends on what footwear you have on. If this is your first walk try and avoid water altogether or you may end up getting either frustrated or worse, wet and then you may not want to go walking again. You’re doing this to enjoy yourself, remember? The other big game changer on a walk is the contour of the land, how steep it is. A map is a flat representation of a three dimensional environment. Hills are represented by contour lines. These are very thin orange lines that cover the entire map (unless you live in Lincolnshire and then you’ll have no idea what a hill is). These lines are spaced at 10m intervals of elevation. This means the closer the lines, the steeper the hill. So for your first walk avoid close concentrations of these lines. This is something else that will be covered in more detail in future posts.

A possible walking route. Be aware of a short walk along a main road. Wear hi vis and a helmet. And tell someone where you're going. And wear knee pads too.

So now we have a route planned, we hope. We are going to walk about three miles in about ninety minutes without straying onto a dual carriageway, without getting wet and without climbing our local mountain by accident. So now you’re eager to get out there.  So next time I’ll cover what sort of kit and equipment you’ll need to take and then after that we’ll cover what to do out on the ground. By then you should well and truly have the explorer bug! Well anticipation is half the fun isn’t it? Until next time.

Napoleon picture from: http://a2.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,h_1200,q_80,w_1200/MTIwNjA4NjMzMjIxNzExMzcy.jpg