I have quite enjoyed walking some of the National Trails, and have guidebooks for a few more, though I hadn’t quite realised that there are 18 trails spread across England, Wales and Scotland.

The Long Distance Walkers Association (LDWA) has set up the register for people completing at least 5 of the 18 National Trails, with certificates at 5, 10, 15 and 18 completed – which is over 2,800 miles if you complete them all. The first recipent, Allan Castle, completed the final Trail, The Speyside Way last May – 30 years after setting off on the South Downs Way (reported in OUTDOORSmagic.com). Here’s to more walking…

National Trails list:

While walking the Southern Upland Way, I came across a seemingly abandoned arch on the top of Benbrack (during day 4 of the walk so I feared I was hallucinating from the exertion of walking).

Quite a while later it all clicked into place – it was better signposted from a road than approaching by walking!

Striding Arches is an artist-led project ‘which celebrates and interprets a little known area of Dumfries & Galloway in south-west Scotland’. Andy Goldsworthy’s red sandstone arches ‘stride’ around a natural amphitheatre deep in the Southern Uplands.

The Arches are formed from 31 hand-dressed blocks of red sandstone from a nearby quarry, each arch stands just under four metres high, with a span of seven metres, weighing approximately 27 tons, and is totally self-supporting.

So that explains it!  Glad I didn’t have to carry a piece up there.

Spending a bit of time again in Scotland, and it allowed me to find another delicacy that would go well with a nice cup of tea – Ecclefechan Tart.

The tart was traditionally made right across the south of Scotland, and I am wondering where it was hiding while I was walking the Southern Upland Way, however it is named after the town of Ecclefechan situated midway between Lockerbie and Annan in Dumfries and Galloway.

Ecclefechan Tart gained national recognition in late 2007 when Sainsbury’s promoted it as an alternative to mince pies for Christmas. The tarts proved to be very popular with over 50,000 packs sold in November alone, and I can quite understand why.  The tart has a texture reminiscent of pecan pie but is spiced with cinnamon and lemon peel and studded with raisins.

Delicious!

I had never heard of the podcasts until a chap left me a message on this blog.  I quickly got hooked with the coverage of The European Outdoor Trade Fair at Friedrichshafen – well all that talk of gadgets was bound to get my attention.  I now have a long wish list to drool over during the winter.

There was a great little series on the Cape Wrath Trail – which is now on my list of long distance walks to do, and a fabulous podcast on Cicerone Press
‘The Book Of The Bivvy’ – which was so good it even got me thinking about the possibilities bivvying could bring me and I went out and brought the book.

Earlier in the month I got a postcard, it was a picture of a pig in Bath – and I just had to check it out.

King Bladud’s Pigs in Bath was a summer 2008 public art event to celebrate Bath, its origins and its artists. Over one hundred life-size pig sculptures turned into works of art are on display throughout the summer all around Bath and beyond. I managed to find 59 pigs – all of the photos are here.

All the pigs are due to be rounded up at the end of the month, and auctioned off in October.  I hope they will be herded into one area prior to the auction as I would certainly head back to Bath to check them out.

On the way to my first day at work for quite a while, and I thought I must have been dreaming. Waiting quietly on platform 9 at Clapham Junction (reputed to be Britain’s Europe’s busiest railway station) and all of a sudden the ‘Duchess of Sutherland‘ came steaming into the station.

Unfortunately it was heading in the opposite direction as the train I was due to catch (and it was a private charter with Steam Dreams) but I was sorely tempted to sneak on board.

I still hope to blog in the future about walks (though I doubt it will be on the scale of the 1,000+ miles I have done in the last 15 months on various long distance walks), but for the time being there might well be a number of posts about gardens.

Was in the neighbourhood and visited Herstmonceux Castle and the Observatory Science Centre (the site of the former Royal Observatory at Herstmonceux).

Built originally as a country home in the 15th century, the moated red-brick Castle is most impressive. As is the avenue of sweet chestnut trees that date from the 1700’s, the walls of the Elizabethan walled garden, and a number of sundials in the formal gardens.

In 1946 the Admiralty bought the estate for the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and it became an important scientific institution for the next 40 years (until 1993 when it was acquired by Queen’s University of Canada, and is now an International Study Centre attracting students from around the world).

The Observatory Science Centre occupies the buildings that were the site of The Royal Observatory. The tour of some of the domes and telescopes highlighted how it was a world leading astronomical site for many years, though nowadays it is at the forefront of making science accessible with an excellent range of hands-on exhibits, activities and science shows. While children need to be accompanied by adults, thankfully as an adult I was able to play with the exhibits quite happily unaccompanied (it looked like all adults, parents and grandparents were having a great time too).

If you are wanting a more sociable time then either chose a different National Trail, or complete the Southern Upland Way going east to west – and you might well meet one or two people each day walking the other way.

While there is quite a bit of plantation forest walking, and some road walking (but on very quiet lanes), the Southern Upland Way takes in some wonderful scenery with magnificent views. There are some long challenging days of walking, which might well deter many people, though with vehicle support or using some of the bothies the route can easily be broken down into manageable chunks.

If I had been sensible I would have planned to use the numerous bothies (there are 5) to split up some of the longer days. Undertaking the whole route in 11 days was probably too little time, spending a couple more days completing it would have made it much more manageable.

The route is very well signposted, the best I have walked by far, and there are just enough people walking the route to define a reasonably clear line in the grass ahead (though thankfully not too many that the path gets churned up or any boggy bit become a quagmire).

The remnants of the Waymerks Project (warning spoilers) added another dimension to the long days of walking, and the various art installations along the route, while not all to my taste, did provide bold statements. The most challenging items however were the various standing stones, cairns and memorials to darker times in Scottish history, not only did these provide a haunting connection with the past they helped describe a very different landscape.

I would highly recommend the Southern Upland Way, and if you have already walked some of the more popular long distance walks/trails I suggest you add it to your list soonest.

Center of map

Route

More photos (from all the days of walking) can be found in the photo gallery.

Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer is a bar of pure deliciousness, consisting of 5 layers of wafer as a way of separating 4 good layers of caramel – and completely covered in chocolate. It is then wrapped in a classy foil-paper wrapper, instead of the terrible plastic coatings that are nowadays often used.

Both milk and plain chocolate version are available. The milk chocolate version is wrapped in red and gold coloured foil-paper, whilst the plain chocolate wrapping is coloured blue and gold.

The wrappers (of the milk chocolate version) bear the proud words: “more than 4,000,000 of these biscuits made and sold every week”. I dare say a comparable number are also eaten! Quite a few kept me going on the long days of walking the Southern Upland Way.

There is a closely related product: Tunnock’s Caramel Log, which is similar to the Caramel Wafer but with the addition of desecrated coconut* to the outside of the bar and with a plastic wrapper. Why anyone would want to do this to a perfectly delicious bar remains a mystery to me – it is almost sacrilege.

* often referred to as roasted or dessicated coconut; in my book any alterations made to delicious fresh coconut is effectively desecration.