A good old chunter about access rights, the right to roam, and Scandinavia's approach to allemansrätten.
My hopes were high. It was a perfect sunny day and the grid square looked enticing on paper. It was mostly woodland, with some contour lines, a small lake and the site of a Roman villa thrown in for luck. There was only one building on the whole square. A motorway and railway sliced through the middle, but a third of the area was a country park and all the rest was open countryside. I was looking forward to roving around a pleasant landscape dotted with enormous trees.
And yet...
And yet, it turned out that the solitary building was a historic manor house that owned most of the grid square and resolutely refused to share it with plebs like me. I was shunted away from the meadows and ancient trees by signs and fences, and ushered instead down an unattractive path squashed between the motorway and a metal fence. I hoped I could at least explore a small copse, but that turned out to belong to a golf course and was also off-limits. And the lake was ringed with forbidding notices from the fishing club that owned it.
So far, the most enjoyable part of the outing had been standing on the motorway bridge and watching the hypnotic traffic hurtle beneath me.
What is Local ?
Do you yearn to connect with wildness and natural beauty more often?
Could your neighbourhood become a source of wonder and discovery and change the way you see the world?
Have you ever felt the call of adventure, only to realise that sometimes the most remarkable journeys unfold close to home?
After years of challenging expeditions all over the world, adventurer Alastair Humphreys spends a year exploring the small map around his own home.
Can this unassuming landscape, marked by the glow of city lights and the hum of busy roads, hold any surprises for the world traveller or satisfy his wanderlust? Could a single map provide a lifetime of exploration?
Buy the book! www.alastairhumphreys.com/local