Stefan Durkacz

The hardest part of course is getting out of London. I knocked off work at lunchtime and headed round to my friend Bryan's flat. We were on the road by 2pm but that's when Friday rush hour starts around here. Two hours later we were finally motoring along the M4 in Berkshire headed for the village of Llanthony in the Welsh Black Mountains. Pints and pub grub awaited us, as well as stars and peace and quiet. A young guy called Russ joined us in the pub; he was over from Reading by himself after his mate bailed out. We found plenty to chat about, not surprising as we were all there for the same reason, although at different life stages - Russ young and without children and making the most of it with his outdoors pursuits and travelling, us early middle-aged types with relatively little time for ourselves but a quickening sense of how much - or little - is left to us. Next morning began with bacon and egg sandwiches and tea at a little hole-in-the-wall-type cafe in the village. Hu...

Low dark cloud raced across the sky as I left Balcombe station. The rain came down and there were no photos. A few miles later, into Nymans Woods, it clears up suddenly and swiftly. The forest floor blazes golden brown, a thick carpet of beech and oak leaves. It's starting to feel like summer but the trees are still bare. Only the holly, ivy and moss provide shocks of green. It's been mostly dry for a couple of weeks and the going is easy, There's little mud on the footpaths and much of the route is on metalled or gravelly bridleways. Through the village of Handcross, bisected by the six thundering lanes of the A23, then diving back into lush lanes, between green banks scattered with primroses. Deepest Sussex, about as bucolic as you can get in the south east. At times you do feel quite far away from it all. The sun is strong, the going is easy, and I'm covering ground fast. Iron was worked in the Weald from prehistory to the 18th century. As the industry grew it needed...

Easter shutdown on the railway meant a narrowing of options for getting out of London for a walk. HS1 down the Thames estuary was still running. Half an hour from St Pancras through the strange semi-industrial interzone of the estuary flatlands and I was here on the Hoo peninsula, the north Kent marshes. The villages sit well back from the river, on the first hints of higher, drier ground. The river is a rumour beyond the horizon. I pass a house called Thames View but the Thames is out of sight. The marshes seem tame at first, grazed, but up close they ooze water. The path follows an embankment between channels thick with head-high rushes. Higham Marsh is full of life. Lapwings whoop and tumble, a heron patrols, and Canada and greylag geese fly in to feed. There's a big aggregate works near the village of Cliffe. Decades of digging out sand has created artificial lakes, new habitat. The RSPB have a reserve here. Finally the coast, the mudflats on the outermost reach of the Thames. ...