Walking IN SUNSHINE
Team healthy grabs their hiking boots to rediscover the joy of a good walk. And the weather even played ball
The Isle of Wight: made for ramblers
Tennyson Down
Freshwater Bay House
Room to relax
Ellie and Kevin with the sunny bay behind them
JOIN A GROUP TOUR ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT
Editorial director Ellie turns up her walking mojo with husband Kevin
ACTIVE BREAKS
I was brought up in a walking family. From the age of three or so, holidays meant hikes around the Dorset coast with my West Country cousins, the years marked with different group photos on Golden Cap, the highest point on the south coast of Great Britain. Not to mention family Sunday walks where I grew up in south-west London.
But, really, anyone who’s known me over recent years probably wouldn’t see me this way – whether it’s because I’ve spent the last few years trying to get out on my bike for long rides as often as I could, or whether it’s because our particular brand of family weekends don’t leave much time for walking. But I’d begun hankering for them – the headspace you only get after a few miles out in the countryside, and that gently enjoyable lower body ache. So I grabbed the invite to join specialist walking company HF Holidays for a long weekend on the Isle of Wight, somewhere I’d always fancied going, but never visited. With the grandparents installed with the kids we hit the A3 on a Friday lunchtime.