Although we have been walking over 10 miles the vast majority of weekends I have done very few long walks in the last few months due to Will, my 10 year old son being with me. He twisted his knee on his first day back to school, so had to rest up over the weekend. This gave me the opportunity to try one of the longer walks I'd planned. As the weather was still pretty poor I decided to stay local and attempt a circular walk from my home via Ross-on-Wye. The walk was cursed from the off. As we started in the field behind our house the farmer had a bull and calves in the field so we detoured up the Burial Path. This was the first in a string of difficulties. Our track log barely follows the planned route at all as again and again we came across fencing, forestry work,trees down and flooding forcing us to re-route. The vegetation hasn't started to die back yet so we were soaked through by all the wet grass obstructing the narrow paths. Eventually we reached a brow of a hill to be confronted by a huge wild boar. It didn't look too aggressive, but I've heard these animals have killed a couple of dogs in the area, so after a quick glance round for any other boars I turned about and detoured once more. This time we took the road to Symonds Yat Rock, which was unusually free from visitors, probably because it had been raining all day and the views were poor today! We passed the lime kilns by the side of the road whilst heading down the steep hill and then into the woods.

There's a great ruin in the middle of the woods and loads of huge fallen rocks. None are as big as the Suck Stone, but there are four or five with 100yds of each other. The Wye is very close to bursting it's banks and every few seconds a fallen tree would go sailing by at about 6 knots. My worst fear was that Huntsham bridge would impassable, as it is susceptible to flooding, but that wasn't a problem today. We trudged through thick mud to get to the road and then the light shower turned to very heavy rain. The OS marked path then disappeared yet again and as I had to be home by 6pm I knew that I was going to be really cutting things close by now, so I headed for Whitchurch on the A40 and for the first time ever I called home. 20 minutes later I was picked up by my wife and we cut our 25 mile walk to a mere 11 miles. With all the detours I'm sure we would have easily ended up on a 30 mile walk which would have been pretty unpleasant in heavy rain. This was also the first time I had worn my Brasher Hillmaster's for a few months, as I have been using the Merrell Chameleon shoes. They do keep your feet dry, but they can be pretty hash on them and I felt I'd walked twice the distance I actually did.

What a miserable year it's been. 2007 was bad, but we got lucky and had a few great trips away in mostly good weather, but at the beginning of August we aborted our planned trip to the lakes once again in favour of Land's End. The only trouble was that it did nothing but rain there too, so we came home after two days. This time the forecast said is was going to be just about OK, so we took a chance and traveled up to where I grew up in Poynton, Cheshire for a night and then on to Buttermere. I chose this location first as we had a narrow boat called Buttermere when I was a child. As soon as we reached Cumbria it started to pour with rain. There was no let up for the two days we stayed, and as it was set to stay for some time we packed up our muddy tent and went home. We did have one great day out walking around the lake. Our campsite was near the banks of the lake, so with a couple of minutes we were down at the tunnel which had been carved into the rock to allow walkers to keep to the lake edge.

We headed east and then up to the cross, which is located on the hillside along with a collection box for Mountain Rescue. We carried on round the lake and then up towards Hay Stacks before heading off to find another memorial, this time to two of the Mountain Rescue team that had died in training exercises in 1969. Although the views weren't great it's easy to imagine how good it looks here on a clear day. The second half of the lake circuit was very busy with walkers. This time we imagined just how busy it must be on a warm summers day. The one real benefit in being here during such a wet summer was that all the rivers and waterfalls looked magnificent.

We enjoyed tea and scones sitting outside during a brief period with no rain. The birds were so tame that they would happily take crumbs from your hand. We then carried on away from the crowds along a lovely river before heading back to out mud bath of a camp site vowing never to go camping again unless the weather forecast is for sunny days.

Oh dear. I haven't updated this site for ages, though it certainly doesn't mean that I haven't been out walking. I'll try and do a few short entries over the next few days just so you can see what I've been up to.

Anyway, on to the idea. I have just been building a Peaks database from information pulled from this excellent site. The database contains Marilyns, Hewitts, County Tops, Munros and many more. I already have a database with all the trigpoints in it. This means I can easily plot any peak on Memory Map or on my GPSr and I can record my visits to that peak. This led me to come up with a crazy new challenge.

How many of these peaks can I walk to from my home?

Well my nearest Marilyn is Ruardean Hill. At a mere 6.61 miles away this will be a piece of cake. There are two new geocaches in that area, so I thought about including geocaches as targets from home. If I do a circular including both the route is about 20 miles.

The next nearest Marilyns are May Hill, Graig Syfyrddin and Garway Hill. All fabulous hills and all between 11 and 12 miles away as the crow flies. I plotted a route to Graig Syfyrddin and reckon I can do it in 26 miles if I stick closely to the route. I don't know how many of these I will get done, but it seems like a good challenge, so I'll be trying these over the coming weeks/months.

I also had an idea about doing the Three Peaks Walk in Yorkshire, so this will be some good training for that. The other great thing about it is that with the ever rising cost of fuel these days I don't need to use the car.

In early August I was given a gpx file of all the mines in the FoD. I may well try to record all of these too. Thanks to Keehotee.

I parked up in a residential area at Cwm and headed north and slightly east through some boggy ground (amazing for August) until I started getting a bit too close to a rubbish tip. The wind was blowing in my direction and I was beginning to wonder what I was doing here. I met to guys fitting a new gate and felt that they really had picked the wrong day for the job. The path then doubles back south and continues to climb steeply. Once the high ground has been gained it's a great place to be. Standing on the top of the hill cuts out all the unpleasant views of the valley town and most of the road noise too. I walked past Darren Ddu where a small herd of nomadic cows wandered by and then down to the lovely Derri Merddog, when the hillside is covered in Oak trees despite being on a 1:1 gradient. The descent down was lovely with plenty of birds of prey and fungi to be spotted along the way. We stopped off at the car to grab some more water and a coffee and then set about the western wing of the butterfly. The track log looked remarkably symmetrical at the end.

We walked through the woods up to the back of Festival Park (retail centre) losing the path for quite a while. Then it seemed to disappear, so we went for the direct approach. Big mistake, well it always is! The very steep climb through 7' high ferns interlaced with stinging nettles was tough and I was exhausted by the time we eventually reached the summit. After a long a excellent walk along Craig Rhiwargan I almost reached the point where I had crossed to Manmoel earlier in the year (oops another one I haven't documented yet), passing the huge crucifix on the hill, then heading back down to the car.

Earlier in the day I had spent some time on the Blorenge, before walking a couple of miles around Cwmtillery reservoir between Mynydd James and Coity Mountain, so the main walk was about 10.5 miles.

Again we were supposed to be in the Lake District, but the weather forecast was so bad we tried our best to follow the sun. The problem was that there wasn't any to follow. We tried to make the most of a disappointing trip. The route here is awful and the campsite must have been one of the worst and most overpriced ever, but having spent most of the first day in the car despite only a 100 mile journey we had one more nice day before the bad weather really set in and we had to cut the trip short and went to visit friends. Our best time was walking down the peninsula to Hurst Castle. We did some walking in the New Forest, but to be honest I prefer the ancient woodland of the Forest of Dean where we live, and it's much quieter. We still had some good father/son time though none of the excitement of the last trip where we were stripping off to wade through rivers and swim to islands.

Will, Bob and I spent a week based in the Talland Park campsite near Looe. We did a lot of walking (mainly geocaching) and became real fans of the coastal walks. The only problem is that they don't tend to lend themselves too well to circular walks. I'd always thought coastal walking was easy as sea level is obviously flat, but the truth is that the paths go down to the beach, then up to a cliff top... and so on. We also did some walking in-land around Liskeard, Lostwithiel and even Plymouth. The whole area was really quiet. We just turned up at the cliff top camp site and grabbed a superb pitch as the site wasn't booked up due to such a poor summer. We had a wonderful week of walking, fishing, building sand castles, eating ice cream. Despite the unhealthy diet of bacon every morning through to beers / coke last thing as there was an on site bar, we had a pretty healthy week with lots of exercise and fresh air.

One of our favourite places was Rame Head, just south of Plymouth, which boasts a fantastic peninsula with the remains of a tiny medieval church on it as well as panoramic views of the sea and coastline. We sat here and enjoyed a bonfire someone had left as the sun set.

We also did a fantastic geocache called Monkey Island, which had us scrambling onto a very steep and tidal island which was very close to our camp site. We were confronted by a hissing adder standing in our path on the way back. They are very common in this area.

Just a quick update to say we've not been sitting idly. Geocaching is kicking back in and we spent a day in the Cotswold Water Park walking around the man-made lakes. The weather was extraordinarily good for early February and coats weren't needed for the first time in ages. This winter has been very mild, but four days after the sun came the snow and we found ourselves snowed in for three days. I enjoyed some lovely snowy walks around Newland as well as sledging with Will. The snow really highlights how it's only you and the deer that use a lot of the woodland trails. We got very close to one deer and Bob even managed to resist the chase. The geese which live on an island in the lake nearby were standing around like spare parts, waiting for the ice to melt.

When the snow thawed we all went geocaching around Caldicot. I can't say it's a place I'd go again in a hurry, but it's OK to mix it up once in a while. It makes you appreciate what you've got.

This was the day that this web site all started. Cath wasn't working today so I got up and headed for the hillside with Bob, allowing Will a rest after our good walk around the Black Mountains yesterday. I decided to stay local and left the car at home. We walked through Newland, down Savage Hill and sw to Lodges Farm before taking the path se just after the game bird enclosure. I'd only been down this path once before. Then Cath and I had ended up scrambling through undergrowth when we lost the path. Now shiny new signs adorned fence posts proudly exclaiming Lower Wye Ramblers Booklet No. 4. As I headed up the hillside I looked back to Newland and took the photo which has become the banner at the top of each page. Game birds were everywhere and Bob was being a handful as he just wanted to chase them all. In a thick band of trees at the top of the hill we came across a ruin. It's so overgrown and dark that it's hard to imagine anyone having lived here. We soon emerged into the daylight and crossed a couple of fields of cut hay and sweet corn that's probably gone past it's best. We crossed Rookery Lane and entered more fields, some >

where the path was cut through the middle of the crop. These roads were resurfaced a couple of years back. It's ironic that the only traffic they see is the farmer, yet the roads in the surrounding area are worn to excess, but they just stick a blob of tarmac in the holes and make them last another year. A dead badger lay at the side of the road and I wondered how anything could be driving fast enough here to kill it.

The first time I ever saw a badger in the flesh was when I came for the interview for my current job. Since then I've seen dozens, but unfortunately probably more dead than alive.

We arrived at Margery Lane and became aware that we were getting close to Clearwell, so headed south, away from home. The distant sound of shotguns and a far off tractor was all I could hear. We came to one of those paths that take you into a farmyard, past the cows in the cowshed and out to a field holding several bullocks, who came running to meet the company. They look cute from the other side of a fence, though yesterday we were in amongst several similar bullocks who were very well behaved. I noticed an unusual arch in the corner of the field. It seemed too high to be a bridge and it only appeared to have one side. The inside was like a small cave, with the obligatory corrugated iron sheet and other bits of junk inside. After a few more fields we walked back down Rookery Lane. It's one of those roads that turns to a track and then on to a rocky path, impenetrable to all regular vehicles.

Through a gap in the trees I snapped the view of Newland. The white buildings are the Almshouses and date back to the 17th century with All Saints Church behind. The building on the right was an old barn when we moved here, but was converted soon after. We saw one person and no cars the whole time we were out if you exclude leaving and re-entering the village.

There was a nasty sting in the tail of this walk. As I entered our garden I heard a bang and a dog yelping in terrible pain. A car had pulled up (not a local) and the dog had jumped out of the car right in front of an oncoming car. Despite the alarming noise the dog looked like it was just really in a state of shock but I'm sure it was badly bruised. This sort of thing keeps you on your toes.

I spent the following evening getting the template together for this site, working on the menu and graphic and deciding the general content. I decided to go for a 1024 screen resolution as most people use this or above these days. I use 1280 and I apologise if you use less, but that's life. I got the first working draft of the site uploaded and am now researching the local railway track routes. I've also got a call logged with my web host, as Perl scripts aren't working. A brief Live Chat Support session proved fruitless. I've designed and implemented a mySQL database for POI. I've never used Perl before, but hey, it's only another scripting language. It's nay rocket science.

As I said before, I guess the site will evolve as time goes by.

I'm not sure how I'm going to display these maps in the future as Topo makes sure you can't print (and hence display) in any great detail anything but small sections of the map from your PC for licensing / copyright reasons. You need to be zoomed in more, but then you can't see the whole trip. I may have to take a look at Fugawi or alternatively I've still got OziExplorer, but you get the gist for now.

For scale, 003 - 004 is just over 1/3 mile

This is how it looks from OziExplorer using an OS map that I'd scanned in and calibrated. I have reduced the image size, which means it's not so legible and it definitely took more effort to produce, but you do see all the paths and roads in the image.

Download the .gbd file for mapsource and the .gpx file