The Great Outdoors July 2020

ALL MY BEST MEMORIES as a child stem from being on walks with my parents in the landscapes of northern England. But they weren’t simply walks – they were fantastic, outlandish adventures. While the adults behaved like Walkers – scrutinising unwieldy maps, making admiring remarks about the scenery and talking about boring grown-up stuff – we kids completely disappeared into warrens of fantasy. We ran amok through bracken and boulders. We concocted stories that stretched out into odysseys with a lifetime’s worth of triumph and tragedy compressed into a matter of hours. Misty old lead workings on the moors became abandoned mining outposts in far-flung alien worlds; mossy ash woods became tiger-prowled jungles; the sinuous limestone cataracts of the River Wharfe became the world’s greatest water park. Good times. Our lead features…

Chris Townsend TGO’s equipment editor and all-round backpacking guru Chris Townsend has been spending lockdown exploring his local woods, fields and moors and appreciating the privilege of living in the Cairngorms. He has seen few people during these walks but many birds, animals and flowers. Nature has gone from winter to summer since lockdown began. Gear testing has continued too, with some garden camps. Indoors Chris has been looking through old photos and reminiscing about his long walks – and planning for ones to come when lockdown ends. Patrick Baker Patrick is passionate about retelling narratives associated with wild histories. He spends the majority of his time in the outdoors looking for unacknowledged and often forgotten ruins and relics located in Scotland’s more remote landscapes – check out his feature on p46. The…

“It is no secret that the crenellated mini-mountain of Stac Pollaidh is one of the best all-round viewpoints in the north-west Highlands. It’s hard to think of another hill in the area that offers such an exquisite outlook, for relatively little effort. “This particular morning started with one of those perfect, silent dawns, when it was abundantly clear that the sunrise was going to be spectacular. When the sun broke the horizon, the light spread across the landscape of Assynt so rapidly that it almost took me by surprise.” jamesroddie.com James Roddie is a professional photographer based near Inverness. He runs Black Isle Nature Photography - guided landscape and wildlife photography workshops in the Scottish Highlands.…

WITH THE ARRIVAL of long, summer days, many of us will find ourselves drawn to glorious, sparkling coastlines that beckon us to walk along their cliff edges and beaches. Lesley Munro’s rendition of Norfolk’s Holme Dunes is a wonderful reminder of summer’s potential. “It’s an other-worldly coastal corner,” she notes, “wild, and a little isolated – a place that invigorates all your senses.” Moving to Norfolk after an art teaching career in Scotland, Lesley has spent the past year experimenting with abstract techniques inspired by her latest surroundings. “The most important ingredient is finding the emotion of the scene offered by the light and atmosphere – and I’ve found bags of it in Norfolk. My paintings are a response to the world I live in, using memory and imagination to help…

WHEN THE UK began emerging from lockdown last month, restrictions on outdoors exercise were among the first to ease. Government decision makers were keen to emphasise that this approach was based on solid scientific evidence. “Broadly, the scientific and medical experts have been clear that there is less likelihood of transmission of this disease outdoors than indoors,” said the Prime Minister’s official spokesman. The reason for the lower transmission rate outdoors appears to be largely to down to ventilation. One study found that infectious coronviruses could remain in the air for up to three hours. But according to Jonathan Van-Tam, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, air currents outdoors seem to quickly disperse “any kind of plumes of anything” around us. “From that perspective, it is absolutely categorically clear that outdoor spaces…

Postal address The Editor, The Great Outdoors, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent ME18 6AL Please include a phone number and postal address. Letters may be edited for clarity or to fit the space available. Mapping apps: part of the solution to outdoor overcrowding? During this current crisis there has been much talk of how much exercise we can take, how far we can travel to get there, and whether to visit particular beauty spots and National Parks. In the UK we are blessed and privileged to have probably the best footpath/bridleway system in the world. We also have the best mapping in the world: Ordnance Survey (OS). Couple this with the numerous navigation apps available (as featured in the June issue of TGO). How hard would it be for the government…