Helen Stafford learns that it's not all about the sights and delightful views of the Malverns, it's also about what you overhear...

“I’ve something to ask you, once we reach the top,” stated one young man to his girlfriend as they climbed up to the highest point at Worcestershire Beacon. I, being an avid walker (and listener) followed at a reasonable distance, curiosity burning.

Both husband and dog were astonished at my sudden increase in pace, as I brashed up the hillside and threw a cheery, “Come along!” over my shoulder, oblivious to what I had overheard.

Once reaching the monumental peak, it’s easy to see why such a landmark would be a perfect setting to maybe ‘pop the question.’ The Malvern Hills, sometimes described as a mountain range in miniature, covers 8 miles and includes some of the oldest rocks in Britain. I’ve never experienced so much tumbling countryside in such a vast quantity; there are over 4500 acres of open rural area.

The Malvern Hills are a great place to explore and if like me, you get easily lost (even with a map) you can see the town of Malvern from most places up on the Hills. The Victorians, who took advantage of the local spring waters when Great Malvern was a prominent spa town, made many of the constructed paths that make walking the Malvern Hills very popular with walkers. The Malvern Hills AONB has designed seven discovery walks, encompassing surrounding fields and woodland as well as special interest walks, which include points of interest for the scientist or train enthusiast. The hills are steeped in history; Herefordshire Beacon, known as the British Camp, has the remains of a large Iron Age hill fort at the summit.

Admiring the view and panting louder than our Labrador retriever, I was relieved we’d kept him on a lead, the hills and commons were grazed with sheep and nesting birds can often get disturbed by loose dogs chasing them off their nests. Brightly coloured kites blustered back and forth in the gentle winds.

“I’ve never seen such an amazing view,” another walker remarked and I had to agree. We seemed to be at cloud level, witnessing sunbeams through misty rain showers, very romantic - reminding me to seek out the couple who I’d been observing. There they were, at the grey stone monument, marking the highest point, he on one knee, she giggling like a schoolgirl. A small crowd had gathered, gasps of “Ooh’s” and “Aahs” could be heard, followed by a rapturous applause as he stood up to embrace his bride-to-be.
“How lovely!” I trilled to my husband.
“Yes, apparently Mallory walked here to prepare for Everest,” was his reply, looking in the opposite direction.
 

Whenever I think of climbing mountains in this country, I tend to scoff and think of steep but gentle grassy slopes with patchwork-quilt views, idle sheep, a mildly raised heartbeat and a thin film of perspiration on the skin that disappears after a standstill and a breather.

When the peak of Snowdon first edged into view, after I had a moment to re-tie my boot laces, the smugness was instantly wiped from my face. I did not expect it to look anything like that. It was pointy! It was a giant, pointy, craggy summit, nearly blocking out the midday sun. I swore I could even see patches of ice hiding in the crevices.

“This is going to be tough,” I acknowledged to myself and my hiking companions; a bunch of ale-drinking, red faced Herefordians who I’ve banded with to do the 24-hour Three Peaks Challenge in July. This was one of our training sessions. For the first time, we were scared. Could we really climb this and get back down in the time we’d set ourselves? 4 hours – which is how long we’d have for the actual challenge.

What surprised me the most, as we began the climb, was the sheer beauty of the place. How could I have been previously unaware of how stunning this part of North Wales was? I was expecting something like the Brecon Beacons, equally as beautiful, but not quite as epic. In vain, I tried to take photos, but didn’t know where to begin. The distant coast, sapphire-blue lakes and surrounding peaks were all calling to be captured in pixels, but I couldn’t justify the true light and spectacle that I could actually see. I wasn’t too fussed though; I was merely documenting our training to put on Facebook, to laugh in the faces of people who said we were mad to consider doing the Three Peaks, that we were too unfit, too flabby round the edges.

I must admit, I couldn’t help but feel a bit flabby when I saw all the other walkers armed with snazzy looking hiking sticks, camel packs and chiselled thigh muscles, ascending like mountain gods. They only put me off for a second or too. I grunted like a determined hippo and stomped on ahead.

After an excruciating hour and fifty minutes, we made it the top; looking like a quintet of sautéed beetroots…a few of us had forgotten to take sun-cream. Lunch and view-cooing was a hurried affair, as we only had a couple of hours to get back down before the deadline. I was thankful for my sturdy walking boots which saved me from a few ankle twists that could have easily been my fate if I’d opted for fell-running shoes.

We hit flat ground again in just over three and a half hours. Result. It was hard but the impending Three Peaks Challenge was beginning to look a lot less challenge-y. The question is, can I climb Snowdon again after a night of no sleep and the tackling of Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike? We shall see. Where’s that steam train?

I’m sure, that on the 15th May 2010, a couple of holiday-makers and dog-walking locals stepped out to enjoy a quiet morning stroll over the slopes around Llanthony, to listen to the early birdsong and relax in a moment of reflective solitude, unbeknownst to them that 3,000 people were already queuing to clamber over the first few stiles.

I was one of those 3,000, donning a compulsory whistle, compass, map and first aid kit, taking strange pleasure in walking a gruelling 18-mile circular route back to the finish at Llanthony Priory. I don’t know how to use a compass, so I felt silly having one, but I held on to it nonetheless – it somehow felt reassuring. The event was organised with admirable precision by Longtown Mountain Rescue, who set up check points every two miles to tend to blisters and self-doubters. They were a welcome sight each time they popped up to stamp our cards and give us the thumbs-up.

Undeniably, the first uphill mile was annoying. It was like trying to get up a busy but broken down escalator, with people tutting and bashing each other with their backpacks, impatient over-takers and omnipresent snail-pacers. But, after half an hour, the crowds spread out into trickles which left plenty of room and a guide when we needed it. I was with a group of friends and hiking acquaintances, some of them a burly macho type who didn’t stop to drink and eat as much as they should have - one of them even became sick with dehydration.

Our lack of map-reading skills let us down a tad. Longtown Mountain Rescue decided it would be fun to test us all out after check-point 3, by not signposting the detour they’d marked out on the map. We chose a different path, as did about 99.9% of the other hikers. Whoops. We did make it to check-point 5 though, to the mocking chortling of the LMR crew.

It was a fantastic day; the weather was beautiful, the views out over the surrounding beacons were awe-inspiring and the camaraderie was heartfelt and motivating, which made the 18 miles an achy but enjoyable graft. We were rewarded at the marquee finish post with tea, Kendal mint cake, a certificate and the smell of sweaty success.

Next year’s Challenge is on the 14 May 2011. I might brave it and opt for the 29-mile route. I’ll have learnt how to use a compass and read a map by then, hopefully.

By Abigail Whyte

I'm sorry. Really, I apologise. For every time I've ever moaned about the Great British Weather when it's interrupted a good country walk.

I've sworn at rain, cursed at clouds, vented fury at Nature's vented fury, and generally whinged when the weather has not been to my liking.

So why the sudden change of heart? Samoa, that's why.

Last month I was lucky enough to jet off to the South Pacific for six days in paradise. Friends seethed with envy. My Mum, a sun worshipper of the most evangelical order and one prone to malaise in the gloom of February, practically disowned me, changing the subject huffily if I dared mention my upcoming, winter-escaping jaunt.

And, don't get me wrong, it was wonderful: lush, palm-fanned, packed with fascinating cultural quirks and exotic drinking coconuts. But, boy, was it HOT. And WET. And then HOT again. It was meteorological mayhem – there were no half measures; no 'quite warm' days or 'light drizzles'. It was full-on torrential downpours interspersed with humidity so high it may as well have been downpouring anyway.

This made walking a challenge. Indeed, I have never sweated so much on a pre-breakfast stroll. As locals, well-used to the air's ferocity, strolled with a nonchalant ease, I wheezed and dripped, wiped my brow, and dripped some more, before the sun had even made it far off the horizon. On a hike up one of the island's youngest volcanoes, a Lost World of creepers and banyan trees surely inhabited by dinosaurs, I was reduced to a puddle of my own perspiration.

And then the rain! Or, to be exact, the fringes of a cyclone, which threatened to pummel poor Samoa head on, but thankfully diverted at the last minute. Winds howled, droplets splatted like pancake batter. This wasn't just rain; this was M&S rain – no nonsense, top-of-the-range, biggest and best you can get.

I loved Samoa. And, curiously, I grew to love walking there – so verdant and alive, so truly tropical, so different from back home. But the thought of swapping our homegrown temperance, our mizzle, overcast afternoons and relatively slight breezes for this tirade of tropical conditions... well, that just brings me out in a cold British sweat.

We woke early on Saturday morning to clear skies and a hard frost, the view across the Mournes showed a low band of snow across the range. We packed a picnic, piled spare clothes into the rucksack and headed south.

The reason for the trip was to take our friend Rod to climb his first mountain. A Belfast city dweller, Rod was inspired to climb Slieve Binnian after watching the TV programme ‘Off the Beaten Track’. He wanted to stand on the spot where Daryl Grimison, the programmes presenter had stood.

We parked at Carrick Little Car park near to the village of Annalong and headed uphill, firstly on the Carrick Little track, then tracking left on to the lower slopes of the mountain following the line of the Mourne Wall.  The fresh snow was powdery and up to a foot deep with thinker drifts in places.

Binnian is one of those deceptive mountains; you think you are nearly at the top when another rise appears on the skyline - Rod was deceived several times. After an hour or so and a few snowball fights, we all reached the summit at 747m, a characteristic rugged crest of rocky torrs.  Breathtaking views stretched out around us - inland across the snow covered summits of the Mournes – Bernagh, Commedagh and Donard, below to the Silent Valley and Ben Crom Reservoirs and out to the horizon beyond the Irish Sea with the Isle of Man clearly visible.

To Rod, a city dweller all his life, this was a new world.  He was amazed that places like this are so accessible to Belfast and equally amazed that he and so many others he knows, had never done something like this before.  For us it was rewarding to share the experience with a newcomer to the hills and later over lunch we made plans for our next summit with our new convert.  The day I am sure, is something that Rod will talk about for a long time to come, the magic of the mountains, the freshness of the air and the inspiration of the sights.

The next morning, I pulled open the curtains at 7am to reveal a further and heavier snowfall.  Having never snow boarded before, I asked the question ‘Is there enough snow?’  ‘Lets give int a go!’ was the answer.  We quickly packed board and boots into the car and made our way slowly to Delamont Country Park on the shores of Strangford Lough. We seemed to be the only people around as we headed into the Park and up the hill to the Strangford Stone.  Standing over 10 meters high, it is the tallest megalith in the British Isles.  The granite stone faces its "birthplace" in the Mourne Mountains, clearly visible on the southern horizon.

After a little instruction and advice, I pulled on the snow boots and clipped into the board.  I slowly and tentatively slid down the hill towards the Lough, turning too sharp at the bottom and falling in a heap. I loved it!  An hour later I felt like I was getting the hang of it, but as the mid morning sun began to melt some of the snow, it was time to go home.

A great big white weekend!

Crossing a spectacular new wooden footbridge in the Naden Valley above Rochdale the other day set me ruminating about this most fundamental part of the public rights of way jigsaw. Ordnance Survey Explorer maps are liberally dotted with the legend “FB”; short shrift is usually given to such unless the said structure proves to be absent, when the air turns blue and fish cover their ears….

They’re the unsung masterpieces of the countryside; engineering marvels covering the whole span of human history. In the most ancient of times our distant forbearers sought to master nature’s watery snakes. Whilst the wooded causeways of the great moss and bog-lands have left but-tantalising scraps, stone-constructed passages continue in-use today; probably the longest-serving human-built constructions. These are the memorable clapper-bridges, a handful of which are still to be found (mostly) in the uplands, linking the sinews of highland paths that recall the genesis of settlements thousands of years ago – at Postbridge on Dartmoor, Tarr Steps on Exmoor or the simple slabs at Arthog (Snowdonia), Great Rundale (Dufton, Cumbria) or Wycoller (Lancashire). Some of these are medieval reconstructions of ancient crossings, renewed to allow pack-horses to cross.

Fast-forward to these medieval days of yore and the relict transport links suddenly explode in number. Like clapper bridges, pack-bridges vary in size; most are the hugely picturesque humps with low walls that span a thousand streams and becks the length and breadth of the land, such as remote Smardale in the North Pennines or at Close Gate near Marsden (West Yorkshire). Others have multiple arches like the delicate Cromwell’s Bridge at Great Mitton (Lancashire) or those at Hockenhull Platts outside Chester, whilst a few are amongst medieval England’s greatest structures, like the remarkable Essex Bridge across the Trent near Great Haywood (Staffs), where just 14 of 40 arches remain above the marshy land. Others again have been developed into road bridges, no longer the preserve of non-motorised users – the lengthy Swarkestone Causeway in Derbyshire for example.

Most footbridges, of course, result from economic necessity/ambition, built to ease access and most originate from the times of the late agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, say 1700-1900, when the need for a flexible, locally-mobile workforce demanded improved communications. Most are unremarkable, unfussy structures but some stick in the mind – my favourites include the miniature suspension bridges such as Wynch Bridge at Low Force, Teesdale, an experiment with cast iron dating from 1830, perhaps the oldest iron footbridge (Ironbridge apart) still in use today, and at Hebden, in the Yorkshire Dales, built in 1885 essentially as an advertisement by the local blacksmith William Bell. The Wye’s impressive iron foot-spans near Sellack shout of the Victorians’ confidence and perceived superiority over nature, as does the Gunners Pool Bridge, alarmingly high above Castle Eden Dene in County Durham.

Then there are the distinctly curious footbridges, such as the fishermen’s bridge at Carrick-a-Rede (Antrim); the wire-mesh bridge over the Wye at The Biblins (Gloucestershire), built by the Forestry Commission in the 1930’s; the medieval Trinity Bridge at Crowland (Lincolnshire), a triangular-arched oddity and, bang up to date, the suspended Millennium Walkway bridge strung above the torrents of the River Goyt at The Torrs Gorge in Derbyshire. Canals, too, are always a happy hunting ground for the more unusual dry-crossings, with castellated bridges in the West Midlands and split-bridges on the Stratford-on-Avon Canal; a few evocative latticework bridges still remain, mostly on preserved railways.

So next time you’re out and about in the countryside, spare a moment to consider these most workaday elements of your walk; seemingly everywhere thanks to the tireless work of countryside staff, landowners, farmers, volunteers and societies who provide and maintain these often simple and unassuming - but occasionally memorable - crossings to enable us to enjoy Britain’s public rights of way.

With sunshine and longer days, with snowdrops and the first buds of new growth, there are cheering signs that Spring is finally on the way. But on a walk last week I spotted one animal at least that isn't ready yet to wave goodbye to the winter. On a late-lingering snow-field, I was thrilled to chance upon half-a-dozen Mountain Hares.

The first one I saw was standing upright on his back legs, close to the path. His long ears shot up in mock surprise and he cocked his head at a quizzical angle as though to say: "What on earth are you doing here?" After a few seconds he dropped back onto his front feet and bounded across the snow with an incredible turn of speed. And as I watched him sprint away I suddenly realised that the whole slope in front of me was covered in a chaotic flurry of hares running in all directions. If only I could move that swiftly and easily uphill through the snow!

All too soon their white coats disappeared into the featurelessness of the surrounding landscape, and I carried on with my slow plod towards the summit, amazed that any animal could be so well suited to life in such a cold and hostile place. The trick, it turns out, is big feet and brilliantly-evolved natural camouflage. The Mountain Hare has broad pads that act like snowshoes; and a coat that changes from brown in the summer to white in the winter in order to blend with the snow-covered hillsides.

Unexpected discoveries and sightings really are one of the great joys of walking. I later found out that I'd unwittingly headed into one of the best areas in Britain to see these hares: the grouse moors of the Cairngorm hills, where they can dig down even through the snow for shrubs and heather to eat. Yet for all that it was a wonderful surprise, my chance encounter also served as a warning: even as we head into March, winter hasn't entirely sounded the retreat. These well-adapted mountain dwellers clearly haven't seen fit to dump their white camouflage yet in favour of their warm-weather attire. And while 're still wearing their winter coats, I think I'll keep mine on too!

Light-hearted pub quizzes sometimes include that hoary old favourite “Where is the most dangerous place in England to live?” The answer, invariably, is Midsomer, where the number of murders appears to outnumber the local population. A quiet corner of the “footballer belt” in North Cheshire may be the ancient equivalent. In the 1980’s body parts turned up with some regularity at the edge of Wilmslow; the local DCI Barnaby investigated and a conviction was secured. The self-confessed killer was, however, hoist by his own petard, for the remains were not of his missing wife but of another era entirely.

Ginger-haired Pete Marsh met a violent death. Beaten, stabbed, garrotted and drowned, his body was consigned to the tilth whilst the Romans were invading southern England. The ground, a marshy, peaty expanse, offered not only a handy burial place for a ritually killed corpse but also a secure place to live, protected by the bogs, woods and brooks of this nether-world that is Lindow Moss. Those who died a natural death were also given to the ground; the 1980’s simply saw a peak in the reporting of parts of bodies that naturally decomposed over millennia, only to be exhumed in peat being dug for garden improvement. Pete Marsh, or Lindow Man as he’s better known, now spends a peripatetic lifestyle moving between museums.

Whilst peat extraction over the centuries has whittled away at the Moss, this eerie expanse remains a haunting place. Low, wooded sandbars rise slightly above the levels, a filigree of tree-lined paths betwixt watery rhines picked emerald-green by sphagnum moss. Stub your toe on a wooded encumbrance and it’s likely to be a 4000 year old lump of pickled, preserved tree-trunk, remnant of a Bronze Age Scots Pine forest. It’s a tumbled, unkempt landscape, pockmarked by abandoned diggings and scored by twisted, whitened boughs clawing for the sky through the strange, desiccated, almost other-worldly flatts. Sparse, thin woodland of alders and silver birch gives home to myriad warblers, tits and finches; dragon and damsel flies flit through rushes; hot summer days herald a strange soundtrack of creaks, cracks and gloops as the mire dries out. On a raw, misty February day it’s a timeless place, a continuum from the dawn of history; one of the very few landscapes Pete Marsh would still recognise in today’s overburdened, sanitised countryside.

My late-departed mother grew up around here and played amidst this landscape from the mists of time; maybe it’s her spirit that draws me here time-and-again. Landscape as ancestral memory.