Author Topic: Have you walked for a 'purpose' or because of personal interest.  (Read 6092 times)

richardh1905

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Limestone features provide good additional motivation for a walk - or for venturing underground.
WildAboutWalking - Join me on my walks through the wilder parts of Britain

watershed

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I have done a few walks like this.
in 2017 I finished walking the Shetland coast line on all the islands that have a ferry service.
I have nearly completed all the hills in Shetland above 150 Metres, as listed by Walter Scott in  www.shetlandbynumbers.com.
I have added a further 7 to his list of 115 and need two to complete, 1 in Foula and 1 in Fair Isle.
This also means I have covered most Trig pillars, and will probably complete the last 6, of 77 when the shutdown finishes.
More recently my interest has been visiting chambered Cairns, and photographing Boat Noosts, to assist a project logging them.
I have also made a point of walking all the main hill ridges, as there are plans to destroy them with a massive Windfarm and I wanted to say goodbye to them before that happens.

 

SteamyTea

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This is starting to read like a 'completists forum'.
Good to have a hobby.
I don't use emojis, irony is better, you decide

watershed

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This is starting to read like a 'completists forum'.
Good to have a hobby.

How ironic

Birdman

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The real purpose for me is always to immerse myself in nature.


But I do use excuses. One is climbing munros in Scotland, climbing hills that I haven't bagged yet. It gives great satisfaction to add a new hill to my list (bagged 182/282 so far). But it is really just an excuse to visit areas that in many cases I would otherwise not have visited and then discover how beautiful these places really are. Even munros that don't appeal to me and that I only climb because I must 'bag' them almost always turn out to be fantastic walks!


Another excuse is birding. I enjoy keeping lists of the birds that I see and also maintain a world-life-list of all the species that I have seen (currently 2373 and counting). The ideal walks for me are long wilderness walks, camping and birding all the way. And some places I visit with the official aim of seeing specific species of bird and adding to my list. But it is really just an excuse for a holistic nature experience.
My travel and walking reports: https://www.hikingbirdman.com/

BuzyG

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This is starting to read like a 'completists forum'.Good to have a hobby.

It's easy to frown upon lists, but the simple truth is they steer us to places we might otherwise never visit and just occasionally those places are magical spots. O0

pdstsp

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It's easy to frown upon lists, but the simple truth is they steer us to places we might otherwise never visit and just occasionally those places are magical spots. O0


Wholeheartedly agree, though I would swap "often" for "just occasionally". O0

Islandplodder

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I quite often choose a walk in the hope of finding a flower I haven't seen.  Or even one I have, but want to revisit.  I've missed a few of my regular pilgrimages this year!

forgotmyoldpassword

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Fitness, achieving something and for charity are things which probably cover 90% of my walks.


I'd love to get better at walks which are all about luxuriating in nature, setting up a leisurely camp and ambling around figuring out what the various types of flowers, mosses and stone types are - just existing rather than putting a series of goals in front of myself to keep me racking up those miles. 


That said lockdown has given me a lot of time to read about these things, expand my knowledge and interest - so perhaps it's something I can get to do sooner rather than later.

harry_keogh

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I mainly do it for exercise, solitude, and a bit of head clearing away from the the noise of everyday life. It's very therapeutic.


I occasionally do a mad 24 hour challenge walk... the reason for those are slightly different. They're basically a test to see if the ageing process has caught up with me yet. So far so good!

gunwharfman

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The aging process, I often think of that as well. I personally find it difficult to pinpoint it but if there is a time for me, its first thing in the morning when I get up, my limbs always feel so stiff and sluggish but by the time I walk downstairs to the kitchen they have loosened up to my normal. I'm lucky in that at the moment I have no known illnesses but I have been ill, not 'ill' as such, I just needed surgery, the last time when I was 70, I'm now 75. What I keep looking for is, is my memory a problem, is my body physically deteriorating in any way, am I still standing upright or am I starting to stoop, do I have painful joints, do I get giddy, can I carry a cup of tea from one end of the house to the other with my hands shaking and so on? At the moment my answer to all of these pointers is no problem, and my wife confirms it as well. It's inevitable that we will all age, so all I can do is to cross my fingers and hope that when it does happen it will not dominate my wife's life too much? Or vice versa if it happens to her first?

Slogger

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My walking has evolved a lot ove rthe 63 years since I was introduced to 'hiking'. As many on here know during the last 30 years, I changed to going further and faster and found that I enjoy the challenge of finding out if I can do a certain route in a minumum amount of time, whilst still enjoying and taking in the scenery etc. The fact is that many wouldn't enjoy walking in the same way, but I do enjoy it and have even tried to enjoy it as much, by reverting back to when to when I when I used to the average daily mileage, but struggled with that so speeded up again.People would criticise by claiming it was rushing through and how could that be enjoyable. The fact is they don't know, so don't get it.
I used to enjoy going as fast as I possibly could doing road, x crountry and fell races, some people have never experienced that rush of endorphins and the overwhelming feeling of exhileration it brings, it's a drug and highly addictive.So yes most of what the walks I do are for myself and what I get out of them, even the miserable moments, when you are wet and tired, make up into the whole experience, and the harder ones are the most memorable.As said, I do my walks for myself but have on numerous occasions used them to raise money for causes when people have been genorous enough to contribute, I have never claimed to be doing a walk 'for' a cause as I would be doing it anyway.
 

Booga

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My walks will usually take in something of interest, I have a few hobbies that I can occasionally do alongside walks, such as finding a trigpoint or staying in a bothy I haven't visited before (and ocasionally walking to one to help with maintenance).
If that makes me a "list ticker" then so be it!  ;D

cornwallcoastpathdweller

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i tend to go for the challenge of getting so far in as speedy a time as i can without resorting to [censored] my knees up jogging or running.  i enjoy the physical side of walking at a decent speed, i find it more tiring to dawdle along sometimes which is a little odd.  I also quite like the solitude for a bit of 'me' thinking time out there in the fresh air.
one step then another then another then a bench - please?

 

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