Bibliothèque des Refusés: Five For Friday #8: Five walks in the not-so-fictional woods

There's more to life than writing and reading—not much more, admittedly, but still… And this 'more' often finds its way into the writing in any case.

I got into walking/hiking in a roundabout way. In one of my London jobs, there was a stand of leaflets near the staff restaurant: these leaflets provided information about various leisure activities and events, including a guide to walking holidays in the UK.

My interest piqued by this, I started buying Country Walking Magazine to see what I might be letting myself in for. But then disaster struck, in the form of a slipped disc. It was only after two years of pain and misery, culminating in surgery, that I could even think of setting foot to ground in earnest.

This week, I present five walks in the three countries in which I have made my home.

1. Seven Sisters and hinterland (Sussex)

This was my first ever 'real' walk, undertaken to celebrate my recovery from back surgery. It was glorious: the beauties of the landscape vying with the exhilarating sense of liberation as I returned to full health and fitness. Every bit of it was a joy, not least the rooks and jackdaws nimbly hopping between tables for leftovers at the picnic area at the end of the walk.

2. Chopwell Woods (Tyne and Wear)

One of the aspects of living in the UK I came to treasure most was the public right to access to the countryside in the form of rights of way and right to roam. When I lived in the north-east of England, I could (and regularly did) literally walk out the door and within a matter of yards go through a roadside stile and continue the walk through open countryside. A favourite walk was to Chopwell Woods and back (the red location tag on the map being the start and end point); the woods feature in passing towards the end of Hollowmen.

3. St. Cuthbert's Way (Scottish–English borders)

This is a long-distance linear walk, the first walking tour I booked as a formal holiday trip rather than making my way to each day's trailhead by car and bus. Walkers were brought to the start and collected at the end of the day's walk, and baggage transferred between successive nights' accommodation. Luxury! Fantastic countryside, starting in Melrose and ending in the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, the places where St. Cuthbert (one of the more amiable saints) started and ended his religious life.

4. Parkland and Dunes around Den Haag

I much prefer the country to the city, but of all the urban environments in which I have lived, Den Haag is undoubtedly the most pleasant. Not the least of its charms is the presence of numerous leafy parks in the urban area itself, and unique dunelands in the peri-urban coasts—part of a long National Park extending along either side of the city. As this is the Netherlands, access couldn't be easier: either walking for the whole journey, or heading to a trailhead by bicycle and setting off from there.

5. Kinnitty Forest (Offaly)

The closest good walking country to me now can be found in the Slieve Bloom mountains, spread across the Laois–Offaly border. They offer a range of linear and looped walks, and while not mountainy in the way that, say, the Lake District is, some of the walks are far from unchallenging.

Ironically, given that I now live in the heart of the countryside, the biggest obstacle is access: there are no rights of way or national public walking paths in Ireland outside of specific areas such as national parks, so instead of nipping through a stile and off across the fields, it is the guts of an hour's drive to get anywhere to walk. My plan this year is to just take the bull by the horns, accept this reality, and do the necessary planning to get out more often: because once at the trail, there is an awful lot of loveliness to enjoy and explore.