Pete's Walks - About my journals

Almost all the journal entries have a link to a map, covering either the entire route of a long-distance path or else that particular day's walk. The maps come up in a new window - this is so that you can easily refer to the map at any time while you are reading the journal entry. Please read my disclaimer and notes regarding maps before looking at any of the maps.

The journal entries sometimes contain links to pages containing my photos of wildflowers and butterflies. These come up in the same window as the journal, so just use your browser's 'Back' button to return to the journal.

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Redbourn church, on the Hertfordshire Way

Some notes about the photographs:

  1. I make no claims whatsoever to be a photographer! I just point the camera, snap and walk on.

  2. I didn't have a camera with me on several of the earlier walks, as I didn't decide to create a web site until much later. So I drove round several months afterwards to take some photo's to add to the journals on the site. Consequently you may see trees in autumn foliage for a walk I did in early summer! In all such cases where the photo's were taken at a later date I have added the date to the caption below the photo.

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Colourful path near Bottom Farm, Ipsden, on Day 20 of my second Chiltern Way walk

Why did I start writing journals?

I started to write a journal when I was partway through walking the Chiltern Way in 2005. I enjoyed writing it, and so wrote a journal for the Cumbria Way which I had also recently walked, and have since continued to write journals for the other long-distance paths that I have walked. The journals serve as a personal reminder of my walks, to jog my memory as I get older. They may also be of interest to other people considering walking these paths.

In general, my journals simply record details of the route, what I see (particularly wildlife and especially birds), how I feel and what I think of the walk. I should stress that much of the factual or historical information that I provide in my journals is taken from the guide book or leaflet that I used on the walk. I always give the details of such sources of information at the start of a journal. As I normally walk by myself, this somewhat reduces the scope of topics my journals can cover - I can't record the comments and witticisms of fellow travellers, or tell amusing anecdotes about events that happen to them.