You probably have your favourite, I love the beaches on the West coast of Donegal or Scotland, just as good in winter as in summer and always empty. I just love being able to walk for miles, breath in all that fresh air and paddle if the mood takes me. I also love sitting in the sand and looking out to sea and having bar-b-ques. What do you love about beaches?
Coast Magazine recommends Oxwich Bay on the Gower Peninsula in S Wales as the best beach for walking on. Far from being empty it is 'one of the most popular' apparently, as well as 'being most dramatic' - now I like that. 'It's a haven for sailing and other water sports and when the tide is out you can walk more than two miles along the sand to the three rocky pyramids of the aptly named 'Three Cliffs Bay'
You can find out more about the beach at http://www.enjoygower.com/
Tuesday 18 May 2010
Monday 17 May 2010
May walking with the East End Girls
The engineering work on the Central Line tried to scupper our plans yesterday but we were having none of it, so abandoning cars in station car parks, making sure loved ones provided lifts and remaining optimistic, 7 of us met at Uxbridge tube to complete another section of the London Loop.
We were walking from Uxbridge to Moor Park, roughly a 9 mile walk which took us along the Grand Union Canal for about 5 miles where we had a very tasty meal in the Coy Carp.
Here are the girls having a relax atBlack Jack's Lock.
After lunch we turned away from the water and headed up along narrow paths through woods teaming with richly scented bluebells, alongside fields of beautiful horses and onto ridges where we had fantastic views over rolling scenery and finally to another Metropolitan Tube station.
Tube stations and wonderful scenery don't always go hand a hand but here they do and being among the furthest reaches of the tube lines, we were truly in the country.
Hopefully, if engineering works allow, we'll be back on the Loop next month walking from Moor Park to Stanmore. Wonder what we'll get to see then?
We were walking from Uxbridge to Moor Park, roughly a 9 mile walk which took us along the Grand Union Canal for about 5 miles where we had a very tasty meal in the Coy Carp.
Here are the girls having a relax atBlack Jack's Lock.
After lunch we turned away from the water and headed up along narrow paths through woods teaming with richly scented bluebells, alongside fields of beautiful horses and onto ridges where we had fantastic views over rolling scenery and finally to another Metropolitan Tube station.
Tube stations and wonderful scenery don't always go hand a hand but here they do and being among the furthest reaches of the tube lines, we were truly in the country.
Hopefully, if engineering works allow, we'll be back on the Loop next month walking from Moor Park to Stanmore. Wonder what we'll get to see then?
Friday 7 May 2010
National Trails
We are blessed in the United Kingdom to have such a range of National Walking Trails, you can walk in the hills, along the coast, by rivers and in the mountains. You can choose to do parts of these trails and in my time I've walked chunks of the Cotswold Way, Offa's Dyke Path, the South West Coast Path and the South Downs to name just a few.
At the moment I'm close to completing the Thames Path with the East End Girls - http://www.walkerscoach.com/east_end_girls.htm and if you look at the page you'll see some of the photos taken on our Thames path journey. It's been great to be on a National Trail and we have a long list of others we want to complete, perhaps we'll just decide to do a full set!
Before setting out, you don't have to know the paths, there are official National Trail Guides and they are wonderful, mine for the Thames Path is well thumbed through. These books are all currently being revised and the entire set of 20 are due to be completed within the year. So far
the Cotswold Way, Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path, Hadrian's Wall Path and Cleveland Way are now in the shops and the South West Coast Path ( Falmouth to Exmouth), Offa's Dyke Path, Pembrokeshire Coast Path, South Downs Way, North Downs Way, Thames Path and Pennine Way North will be completed soon. If you are up for any of these trails, make sure you get the new books and make sure that your information is the best that it can be.
At the moment I'm close to completing the Thames Path with the East End Girls - http://www.walkerscoach.com/east_end_girls.htm and if you look at the page you'll see some of the photos taken on our Thames path journey. It's been great to be on a National Trail and we have a long list of others we want to complete, perhaps we'll just decide to do a full set!
Two very different view of the Thames from the Thames Path
If you were to choose which trail would you opt for? My top two at present are the Hadrian's wall Path and the Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path.
Before setting out, you don't have to know the paths, there are official National Trail Guides and they are wonderful, mine for the Thames Path is well thumbed through. These books are all currently being revised and the entire set of 20 are due to be completed within the year. So far
the Cotswold Way, Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path, Hadrian's Wall Path and Cleveland Way are now in the shops and the South West Coast Path ( Falmouth to Exmouth), Offa's Dyke Path, Pembrokeshire Coast Path, South Downs Way, North Downs Way, Thames Path and Pennine Way North will be completed soon. If you are up for any of these trails, make sure you get the new books and make sure that your information is the best that it can be.
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