Country Walking

Country Walking Magazine shows you the best of British walks: the biggest views, the hidden gems, the sea cliffs and the mountain summits. All our features come complete with superb writing, inspiring photography and step-by-step instructions so you can follow every footpath yourself. In every issue, you’ll find: - In-depth stories of amazing walks - A booklet of 25 pull-out walks every issue - with OS maps! - Information about hotels, pubs, cafes, tearooms. - Clear, jargon-free tests of walking kit And... every issue our readers tell their walking stories, help us devise new walks and shape the places we go to. If you love walking, this is the magazine for you.

Welcome

IN THIS ISSUE …

Fall on your feet

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS MONTH

214 mountains, one very intrepid baby • How mum Leona and son Jay ticked off the ultimate Lake District hit-list… just in time for Jay’s first birthday.

KESWICK • With more fantastic yomps on its doorstep than you could do in a lifetime, this Lake District town is one of Britain’s elite walking locations.

Join the race for Golden Badgers • Spice up your miles with one of our seasonal, silly and strangely specific quests and you could win a Golden Badger*, like this lot just have!

Win yourself some gold! • Tackle one – or all! – of these mini-challenges, post your photos and stories in the Walk 1000 Miles Facebook Group and we’ll send a money-can’t-buy golden badger to our favourite 20! You have until 13 November for this lot.

Laugh, kookaburra!

Where’s Kes? • Every month our favourite spaniel Kes goes walkies somewhere in the issue, and we want him back! Can you help find Kes?

Tea break

Stuart Maconie • Ice cream and aerobatic swifts are all very well, but the thing I miss most about the warmer months is the greatest summer tradition of all…

A WALK ON THE DARK SIDE • Beautiful hikes through Britain’s wildest history

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES • Isolated, beautiful, brooding: Lancashire’s Pendle Hill is a place of ales dark – and light.

A SCREECH IN THE DARK • Is there a sight or sound more likely to shiver your spine than the pale ghost of a barn owl?

THE WALKING DEAD • At Merrivale on Dartmoor a line of granite stones once marked the boundary between the sick and the living. Today it marks the start of one of the country’s most haunting walks.

DON’T ‘EAT ME’! • It looks like a toadstool Alice might have found in Wonderland, but don’t be fooled…

The Fishguard Fiasco • When French soldiers chose this wild, remote corner of Pembrokeshire to launch an invasion, they didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for…

‘Black Bart’

THE TREE OF LIFE? • Seemingly immortal yet also deadly, yew trees can live for thousands of years… and kill with poison.

Rage the against machines • The Swing Riots were the biggest rural uprising Britain has ever seen – and the first hammer blow was struck in a beautiful Kentish valley.

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT • Spot the striking orange and black Halloween hues of nature’s undertaker.

FIRE IN THE HOLE • On November 27th 1944, rural Staffordshire was torn apart by the largest explosion ever on British soil. Walk here and you can feel its awful impact in more ways than one.

HERE COMES DR DEATH • Smart, cunning, playful, and ever-present when things get gory – the global myths about the handsome raven are as complex as the bird itself.

Country walking Gear • Hot new kit| Big ideas| Long-term tests| Great bargains and more…

ALSO LANDING

Wondrous & Galvanising… or Wallace & Gromit? • The Hypershell X Ultra Exoskeleton is designed to make it easier to climb mountains. We headed to Snowdonia to see if...