eBoot – January 2018 This month’s edition includes: • Bristol Walking Festival • Ramblers access guide • Can you go down to the woods today? • Bristol Walking Alliance ! • Notices • Poems for walkers • Forthcoming walks • Commercial corner Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bristolramblers- group/ Bristol Walking Festival Thank you to those who have offered to help, with the preparation for the festival or by leading walks. We are, with others, working on a plan to deliver the Festival without City Council financial support, and we hope to have more news next month. In the meantime, further offers of help would be welcome: contact [email protected]. Ramblers access guide Seventeen years ago today, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act was passed, giving rights of open access to more than a million hectares of countryside. Open access land gives us the chance to step off the path and walk freely, explore wild, open landscapes and find our own way. But do you know how to identify areas of open access? Do you know where you can and can’t walk once you’ve found it? Do you know what rights and responsibilities you have once you step off the path? To help, the Ramblers have produced a guide to open access, giving you everything you need to be able to head out and confidently explore the countryside. The guide is available at http://www.ramblers.org.uk/advice/ access.aspx. Can you go down to the woods today? The national Ramblers petition calling for improved access to woodlands in England and Wales is still open, at https://e-activist.com/page/15160/petition/1. Bristol Walking Alliance You may have noticed reports in the local press on police action against pavement parking. Obstructing pavements is a serious problem in some parts of the city, and particularly affects elderly pedestrians, people with pushchairs and young children, and people with disabilities. The BWA has been campaigning for action by the statutory authorities, and it is good to see some evidence of progress. !1 The BWA has also met with the Bristol Cycling Campaign, to try to agree a shared set of proposals for submission to the Mayor’s Congestion Taskforce. Notices Area AGM The Avon Area AGM will take place on Saturday 3rd February at Patchway Community Centre, Rodway Road. There will be an optional walk (5 miles +) starting at 10am, and the meeting will start at 1.30pm. Code of Conduct The Ramblers have adopted a code of conduct, setting out the basic principles of how everyone involved in the Ramblers should work together in a spirit of mutual respect and understanding. The Code can be found at http://www.ramblers.org.uk/volunteer-zone/about-volunteering/code-of-conduct.aspx. National Ramblers General Council The annual General Council meeting will take place at Bangor on 7th/8th April. The Avon Area is entitled to send a number of delegates. If you would be interested, contact [email protected]. Footpath Friends The Avon Area has invited nominations for ‘Footpath Friends’, landowners who have made particular efforts to improve or enhance footpaths on their land. If you would like to make a nomination (deadline 19th January), please contact [email protected]. Poems for walkers For 2018, there will be a poem each month in the eBoot. We start with Roads by Edward Thomas. Thomas was among the greatest walkers and poets of nature among British poets of the twentieth century. The themes of this poem include memory and transience, and there is great poignancy driven home in the third verse from the end - the poem was written in 1916, after Thomas had volunteered to serve in the 1914-18 war, and he died in the battle of Arras in 1917. ‘Helen of the roads’ is Saint Elen of Caernarfon, a Celtic saint, whose story is told in The Dream of Macsen Wledig, part of the Mabinogion. She is said to have ordered the construction of roads in Wales during the late 4th century, including Sarn Helen in the Beacons. Helen was also the name of Thomas’s wife. I love roads: The goddesses that dwell Far along invisible Are my favourite gods. Roads go on While we forget, and are Forgotten like a star That shoots and is gone. !2 On this earth ’tis sure We men have not made Anything that doth fade So soon, so long endure: The hill road wet with rain In the sun would not gleam Like a winding stream If we trod it not again. They are lonely While we sleep, lonelier For lack of the traveller Who is now a dream only. From dawn’s twilight And all the clouds like sheep On the mountains of sleep They wind into the night. The next turn may reveal Heaven: upon the crest The close pine clump, at rest And black, may Hell conceal. Often footsore, never Yet of the road I weary, Though long and steep and dreary As it winds on for ever. Helen of the roads, The mountain ways of Wales And the Mabinogion tales Is one of the true gods, Abiding in the trees, The threes and fours so wise, The larger companies, That by the roadside be, And beneath the rafter Else uninhabited Excepting by the dead: And it is her laughter At morn and night I hear When the thrush cock sings Bright irrelevant things, And when the chanticleer Calls back to their own night !3 Troops that make loneliness With their light footsteps’ press, As Helen’s own are light. Now all roads lead to France And heavy is the tread Of the living; but the dead Returning lightly dance: Whatever the road bring To me or take from me, They keep me company With their pattering, Crowding the solitude Of the loops over the downs, Hushing the roar of towns And their brief multitude. Some forthcoming walks Full details of the walks programme are in the published programme and on our website and also on the national Ramblers Walkfinder. If you would like to see walks in future programmes, you can see the spreadsheets on our website (walks>led walks>walks for future programme). If you would like to add a walk to one of the spreadsheets, contact the appropriate Walk Coordinator. New Year’s Day – Monday 1st January (A/B walk, 11 miles) This year’s New Year’s Day walk starts from the village of Backwell and climbs gently, leading to views across the Bristol Channel to the Welsh hills, and down to Steep Holm. Later we have fine views of the Vale of Wrington and the Mendips before we descend into the village of Wrington for our lunch stop at the warm welcoming and spacious Plough Inn. The afternoon will see us return via Goblin Combe and Brockley Combe. The vast majority of this walk is on firm tracks and well drained limestone bridal ways . Please organise yourselves at Gt George St for lift sharing at 09:15, and depart Bristol via Hotwells following the A370 Long Ashton Bypass, signed Weston-Super-Mare. In the village of Backwell at the cross roads with traffic lights turn left into Dark Lane (signed Recycling Centre) and park at the top of this road. Meet the Leader at 09:30. For those wishing for a shorter walk (8 miles), meet us at the lay-by with a bus stop half way up Brockley Combe (entrance to Fountain Timber, GR484664 Exp 154) at 11:00. 3rd January - Leigh Woods/Ashton Court (Wednesday walk, 6 miles) !4 This walk starts and ends opposite The George Inn at Abbots Leigh. The X3/X4 bus stop is nearby and car parking is available in Church Road. We will head across fields towards Leigh Woods where there will be views of the Avon Gorge (as well as a dragon). Crossing over to Ashton Court, there will be a coffee stop at the golf course café. There will be more woodland walking before we reach the lovely Abbots Pool. Then it’s not far back to the start. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, The George is no longer offering lunch on Wednesdays. 6th January - Blackboy Hill to Old Market (Saturday walk, 4 miles) This is not a dreary trudge downhill for those to whom the A-Z is a mystery. We shall view the quirky architecture of La Trobe, from Neo Baroque at the top of the Blackboy, his own house in Cotham, the Whiteladies Cinema, the fantasy on College Green to the Kingsley Hall in Old Market that he converted for the Labour Party - a commission he must have enjoyed as it was a former Tory haunt and he was early LP. More details on the day about his other local buildings and, of course, the Moravians (an offshoot of the Hussites who gave up defenestration and took to the trombone). 7th January - Redcliffe Bay (A walk, 15 miles) From Portishead we head along the coast to Redcliffe Bay where the route turns inland. We cross the Gordano valley before climbing to the end of Cadbury Camp Lane. A visit to Cadbury Camp itself follows before a steep descent towards Tickenham. The height is soon regained to reach the woodland paths that lead us to Clevedon and lunch. In the afternoon, we enjoy views of Clevedon from its various footpaths and then follow the coast path for a while. A detour inland leads us to Walton-in-Gordano before we climb the slopes of the nearby nature reserve. We then return to the coast path which is followed all the way back to the cars.