As we enter spring and the days lengthen I have started to think about where I want to go backpacking and wild camping in England over this year. I looked up a map of England’s National Parks and bought ten waterproof OS Explorer maps, ranging across the country from Dartmoor in the south to the Lake district in the north.…
If you’ve followed the Exploration Journal for some time, you will know by now that I love waterfalls. They make frequent appearances in many of my posts and a lot of my time involves scrambling down muddy ravines or long walks just to reach them. I find the prospect of locating waterfalls just as exciting as arriving at it and…
This is the second part to walking the GR50 through Peneda Gerês National Park in Portugal. Read about the first section here – GR50 – Tourem to Xertelo After camping in the gorse around Sete Lagoas we started the walk back to rejoin the GR50, this time following the more popular route that meandered relatively flat along the top of…
We started walking the GR50 in Peneda Gerês National Park about four days ago and spotted a footpath sign reading PR9 just after Xertelo. We fancied an adventure and so decided to follow it through a gorge-like valley and camp somewhere along the river near ‘Trilho Sete Lagoas’. Camping somewhere was a priority immediately after starting the route as it…
In my Summer Update I talked about the plan to fly to Portugal and walk the GR50 through Peneda Gerês National Park. It required some careful planning to understand the Covid restrictions, tests to enter Portugal and test to enter the UK again, but also what the route looks like, which was by far the most interesting! The original plan…
I recently started a project to visit all the waterfalls on Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor, which is quite the undertaking! Fortunately Bodmin Moor is easy as there are only two – the main one at Golitha Falls that everybody knows about, and then there is the complete opposite at Cascade Woods, a secret spot that isn’t talked about much and…
The weather in Cornwall can be atrocious, especially in winter when the storms roll across the Atlantic Ocean to batter the coastline and cover the county in torrential downpours. Which is why it is valuable local knowledge to know where you can go for a sunny walk when the weather looks bad everywhere else. The Tamar Valley is known to…
The stretch of Cornish coastline named High Cliff (aptly named due to being the highest cliff in Cornwall) is also home to my favourite local beach – the Strangles. Regardless of where you park, the route to the beach involves winding down for over 200 metres and then using a rope and rickety steps to drop the last couple onto…
The South West Coast Path is England’s longest way-marked long distance footpath, hugging the coastline for 630 miles and meandering through some of the best views England has to offer. Walkable from either direction, it starts at Minehead in Somerset and goes through Devon and Cornwall, concluding at Poole Harbour in Dorset. The route includes the moorland of Exmoor, the…
The walk from North Hill through Cascade Woods and up onto Bodmin Moor is one of my favourites in North Cornwall. You can park at the village hall in North Hill (providing there is nothing going on) and have easy access to the valley. The parish is full of history, so much so that they have a website dedicated to…