Back in those lockdown days in 2020 – still ‘working’ but dreaming of what I would do when I retire I remember reading an article in the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/jun/13/how-the-slow-ways-network-could-change-walking-in-britain I had already decided that walking was going to be a big part of my retirement and this idea really intrigued me. Dan Raven-Ellison summed it up so well. “Walking is important for so many reasons. There’s a climate, ecological, health and financial emergency, and walking can help reduce personal emissions, save money and bring joy. Life has slowed down in lockdown. Now people are reconnecting with their surroundings and discovering new things about the country. I hope Slow Ways will help them to continue to do this.” I signed up for their newsletter.
So 2020 came and went with lockdowns and poor health which relegated walking to short trips to the shop or the GP or the hospital. Slow Ways launched their website in 2021 which renewed my interest. https://beta.slowways.org/ I was pleased to see that one of the routes passed the end of my street. As it happens the section from home to Gateshead town centre is my well walked route to the shops and onward to Newcastle so it was very familiar. What I hadn’t ever walked was the section from home to Springwell though the section to Windy Nook was familiar too as it is where my local Tesco Extra is and the Windy Nook Nature Park.
I think it was May 2021 when I finally got round to walking part of a route. It was the one which passed the end of my street. Each route has a title and this one is GatSpr because it goes from Gateshead to Springwell. It was one afternoon I had some time before a medical appointment so I set off to walk to Springwell Village. I was trying to follow the downloaded route on my OS App but I kind of strayed from the path crossing the Nature Park – I blame a building site across the path of the route. As it was my first time I was trying to follow it exactly – I’m a bit more relaxed now.
I crossed the road into what I now know is Whitehills Nature Park and crossed an area of grassland with indistinct paths. I then came to a designated footpath which I dubbed ‘Fly Tipping Central’ It was overgrown and littered with all kinds of rubbish. This section wasn’t in anyway a pleasant walk. My spare time was running short so I never got as far as my destination and headed home.
This experience kind of put me off the project and it got put on the back burner.