Quick Strolls - small adventures

Sian: …this idea that adventure has to be this kind of macho, extreme adventure, where it's not a real adventure unless you've really suffered. And you know, you come back from a round the world cycle trip covered in mosquito bites, and you've had to, like wee on mountainsides. I think that's great if that's what you're into. And I think that can be so fun as well, but that's not for everyone. And I think especially with outdoor adventuring, that extreme, gnarly side is still what some people think adventure is. And I actually don't think that at all, because most of us aren't like that. Most of us have nine to five jobs and kids and families and social lives. And you can still fit adventures around that. And adventures can be whatever you want to define them as. 

They can be gentle, they can be enjoyable. They don't have to be these kind of suffer-fests, unless that's what you like. You can fit a lot into a couple of hours in an evening or a Saturday morning. And I really love the idea of making big adventures fit into little time where you don't have to take a lot of time off work, and you still, for me, you still get that real lovely buzz of being outside and being adventurous, but you can still have your day-to-day life. I don't think there's anything less valuable about that, as opposed to, you know, quitting your job and going on a six month expedition at all. Actually, I think the nice balance in life is to have a balance of adventure and, you know, the daily grind, essentially.

Alistair: I think most good adventures begin with a map. You get a map out, and you look at it, and you start daydreaming of travels. And that applies whether it's looking at a globe or a map of your country, or just the Ordnance Survey map if you're going to go hiking in the hills somewhere. So I really like maps. And so that was, I suppose, a part of it. But there's also this thought, feeling that I've spent literally years in other countries cycling 1000s of miles across landscapes, and yet, when I drive to the shops, there's a little bit of woodland that I see that I'd never been into, or when I get the commuter train into the city, you go past some sort of hill or neglected bit of land I'd never been to before. So how could I think of myself as a so-called explorer if I didn't even know what was in my neighbourhood? So I was kind of curious about that.  

So the map's divided up into one kilometre grid squares, and I had the idea that if I went out once a week, that's not too much of a commitment to explore one grid square. That's not too much of a hassle, and to do it every single week for a year. Then over the course of the year, I'd see quite a lot of where I lived, and also I'd see it through all the rolling seasons and changes of the year. And that might help me pay a bit more attention to the universe, rather than me just sitting at home sending emails all day.

Sarah: Hiking is so much about that one foot in front of the other. You get there, you see what happens. There will always be a hike to do, wherever you are in the world. And if you take the attitude that it doesn't really matter how perfect it is, it'll unfurl as it needs to. And the thing about hiking is you just start. You just start walking. And the magic does its job, so you just start walking, even if it's 20 minutes. And you know, I've looked into studies on this. There's been 40 to 45,000 studies that have been done on the benefits of walking in nature, mostly done out of Japan and South Korea, where they take this stuff really seriously, and hiking is part of their health policies. Mostly it's just being out there in nature, seeing the patterns, putting one foot in front of the other. It naturally just does its job on your physiology, on your mental health, on the connections that go on in your brain, the prefrontal cortex. It's actually a real relief to know you don't have to do much more than that, other than… just start walking.