ADVENTURES

Adventure is a bold word that is used to describe any number of experiences. For Rheged, Adventure has been closely linked to our development, indeed the Gallery, which this exhibition now occupies, was until 2007 the home of the National mountaineering Exhibition developed by the Mountain Heritage Trust. ADVENTURES honours this connection with a series of loans from the Trust which artist Derek Eland has responded to with a selection of his own related work.

Sir Chris Bonington is one of the founding members of the Mountain Heritage Trust and is one of the most recognised names in mountaineering, however his own experiences show that adventure is not confined to climbing. A series of never-before-seen photographs within this exhibition perfectly capture the range of adventure Sir Chris has experienced in his lifetime. One series from

1977 shows the dramatic expedition to the Ogre, in the Himalayas, which could have so nearly ended in tragedy when Doug Scott broke both his legs near

the summit. An earlier series from 1968 shows an expedition descending the Blue Nile with the British Army. Here Bonington trades rock and ice for jungle and swamp with the danger of falling swapped for the risk of ambush by local tribesmen or fearsome crocodiles.

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Ice Breaker Oden by Andreas Palmén

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Julian Cooper working on Scafell Crag

Julian Cooper surely felt this very acutely as he undertook the commission from The Mountain Heritage Trust for Scafell Crag, the monumental painting that hangs outside the gallery by the bridge. The exhibition shows some of his early sketches and tells the story of how this painting came to be, amidst shrinking deadlines and the terrible backdrop of foot and mouth – restricting access to the very landscape Julian was to paint.

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Alastair Humphreys’ Micro Adventure Selfie

Adventurer Alastair Humphreys brings the attention back to us – how do we access ‘Adventure’ ourselves? His series of ‘micro adventures’ have inspired a range of local people to have their own brush with adventure. Quite apart from his grand adventures, walking across India, cycling around the world, his micro adventures are small personal expeditions, often no more than a few miles from his home. Alastair says ‘Adventure is stretching yourself; mentally, physically or culturally. It is about doing what you do not normally do, pushing yourself hard and doing it to the best of your ability.’ You have the chance to do this yourself, and even see your own thoughts on adventure in this exhibition by taking a set of Alastair’s instructions and having your own micro adventure.

Norfolk Joiner Michael Thompson shows us another altogether different perception of adventure. In 2010 he decided to attempt to construct the world’s first 100% wooden bicycle, the Splinterbike. The documentary that accompanies the bike shows the media attention and the triumphs and defeats

of his unusual mission, which seems to follow much the same narrative pattern as a polar expedition or challenging ascent. What the Splinterbike shows us is that exposing ourselves to the risk of failure is as much of an adventure in what feels like and increasingly safe western environment.

JULIAN COOPER

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Julian Cooper’s pallatte whilst painting Scafell Crag

In 1999, John Dunning, the vision behind Rheged, asked if I would be interested in making a large painting to hang on one of the main walls of the new visitor centre, still under construction. He showed me round the shell of the building and we discussed some possible spaces for the painting. The idea was to host a permanent National Exhibition of Mountaineering at Rheged, the Mountain Heritage Trust being formed for the purpose. The new painting was to celebrate mountaineering and the role of the Lake District in the birth of rock climbing.

I’d done a previous small painting of climbers on Central Buttress Scafell, and showed this to the MHT to give them idea of the proposed subject. They

approved it, and over the next few weeks I sketched out several possibilities up on the mountain. The wall that John Dunning had settled on a long horizontal wall in the restaurant, so the sketches were with that landscape format in mind.

Next, the commissioning process was handed over to John Innerdale, MHT’s chairman, and he succeeded in winning Heritage Lottery funding for the painting.

I developed the idea of Scafell Crag sweeping across the picture with Pikes Crag on the right, and Wastwater between the sea beyond. Climbers of various

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The massive stretcher for Scafell Crag laid out on Julian’s studio floor in Ambleside

types would be in action throughout the painting. It would be a horizontal painting about 15 ft x 7ft, perfect for the subject. One of my biggest commissions to date.

Then the proposed wall for the painting changed -without me knowing – the new space was 25 ft high and 15 ft wide – so Pikes Crag had to be moved in front of Scafell, deleting the landscape in between. This seemed to work, so the stretchers were made to measure in London, the canvas ordered and I got to work.

The painting was going to be 13 ft high and 10 ft wide – luckily my then studio in Ambleside had a high ceiling. I found a man in Cark-in-Cartmel who sold me some interior scaffolding, essential for working on the top half of the painting. Having primed the canvas I made a ground with raw umber pigment and acrylic medium, adding sand to give it grit. Talking to the writer David Craig I mentioned the commission and he volunteered with his climbing partner Chris Culshaw to model for the climbers on Pikes Crag. In 2000 we spent a rainy but successful day on the crag with them climbing a ‘Difficult’ route called “Crenation Ridge”.

Early in 2001 the Foot and Mouth crisis had started and the fells were out of bounds. I’d wanted to anchor the composition with a figure scrambling up the gully in the foreground, hand outstretched, entering into the viewer’s space.

My niece Rebecca agreed to model for this and she clambered up and down

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Julian referring to photographs for the painting

a ladder at Grasmere while I photographed her from the flat roof above. It did the job.. But I still needed climbers on a more serious route on Scafell Crag. Then in August I had an urgent call from John Innerdale, saying Rheged was to be opened by the Prime Minister, and imminently. He came over to inspect the painting, was satisfied that it could go up on the wall, and I hastily made the transport arrangements.

To remove it from my studio meant unstretching and rolling up the canvas, then re-assembling it inside Rheged. Hanging the painting took 4 men, ropes, 2 long ladders, and a specially made framework to support it whilst it was secured to the wall. When Tony Blair unveiled the painting in September 2001 and made a speech about the foot and mouth crisis, my main concern was that it wasn’t finished, I still had to add some more climbers. Luckily, Lord Inglewood, one of

the guests, kindly offered his large nearby threshing barn as a studio to finish the painting. Then the foot and mouth restrictions ended, and I was on Scafell again with Steve Goodwin, his son Danny, and Rebecca’s boyfriend Jim Evans. They’d volunteered to climb a classic ‘Hard Severe’ route called “Moss Ghyll Grooves”. I photographed them all the way up with a long lens from my position in Pikes Crag Gully. Even from a quarter of a mile away, due to freak weather and acoustics I could hear the climber’s conversations as they ascended the crag.

Six months later the painting was back on the wall in Rheged with the important addition of those small but significant figures on the Crag.

JOHN INNERDALE MBE

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John Innerdale is a prolific climber, writer and painter. He also founded the Mountain Heritage Trust and curated the National Mountaineering exhibition at Rheged for several years.

For ADVENTURES John has loaned several of his much treasured expedition journals. These beautifully bound books collate the writings and sketches made by John in the field.

The sketchbooks bring into question the relationship between artist and adventurer. Can one be a better artist by thinking like an adventurer? Or a better adventurer by thinking like an

artist?

The Towers of Paine by John Innerdale MBE

JONATHAN TROTMAN

Jonthathan Trotman has been living and painting in the lake district for almost 20 years. His bold, thickly impastoed compositions are largely painted with a pallet knife. Jon exhibits a great deal of

confidence in his mark making, with broad sweeps of intermingled colours stretching across the coarse, rugged mountain faces of his Lake District subjects.

In ADVENTURES Jon’s painting Approaching Great End faces Julian Cooper’s Scafell Crag Sketches. The same looming mountain form can be seen in each image, with climbers marching towards it with great purpose.

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Approaching Great End by Jonathan Trotman

THE CHRIS BONINGTON PICTURE ARCHIVE

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Chris Bonington piloting a military aircraft during the 1968 Blue Nile expedition

Sir Chris Bonington is one of this generations most accomplished and recognised mountaineers. His career spans over six decades and found its genesis in the fells and mountains of Cumbria’s Lake District, where he still lives.

In 1963 Chris made the first ascent of the dramatic Tower of Paine, visited by John Innerdale, and detailed in his journal opposite Chris’ photographs in

the Gallery – John writes ‘The epic tales of [the] 62/63 1st ascents are part of mountaineering folklore’.

In the mid to late sixties Chris was an adventure journalist for the Daily Telegraph, an occupation which frequently took him on exotic and richly varied expeditions including a 1966 ascent of the highly active volcano Sangay in Ecuador with Sebastian Snow. It was through Bonington’s work with the Daily Telegraph that he found himself on a dramatic expedition with the British Army – the first descent of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. The images shown in the central space of the Gallery

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Chris Bonington at the Western Summit of the Ogre (7285m) in 1977

show the dramatic scenery and unfamiliar landscape of this expedition, led by the inimitable Captain John Blashford-Snell, who is photographed complete with pith helmet and imperialist sneer. Bonington writes of Blashford-Snell ‘He would have been happy 200 years ago exploring and conquering deepest Africa.’ All this being said Blashford Snell went on to found what woudl become Raliegh International – an organisation that has given many young people the opportunity

to have their own adventures. This expedition bought real danger quite apart from the risk of falling or freezing in mountain conditions. Local tribesmen frequently ambushed the party, and on several occasions they were forces to repel these attacks with gunfire.

In the first space in the Gallery is a series of photographs from Bonington’s epic first ascent of the Ogre in 1977. After reaching the main summit of this craggy, deeply challenging mountain Bonington’s climbing partner Doug Scott had a bad fall whilst rappelling down, breaking both his legs. The team (also consisting of Nick Estcourt, Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine) had to weather a terrible storm, going for five days without food. Doug Scott made the descent by crawling on his knees, the rest of the team took his gear but were unable to carry him. The descent was successful, although Bonington broke several ribs after suffering a bad fall himself.

DEREK ELAND

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From Hadrian’s Wall With Love, Film Still

Derek Eland’s life seems to have revolved around a series of adventures – from his time as a paratrooper to running the Bob Graham Round and going to Afghanistan in 2011 as a war artist.

For ‘Adventures’ he has spent time engaging with and responding to objects from the Mountain Heritage Trust. Eland says “It seems entirely natural to have engaged with the wonderful Mountain Heritage collection and a privilege to exhibit my own work alongside it. This process has been an adventure in itself.”

How does an artist react to such an amazing collection of objects? For this exhibition Derek Eland has responded by both creating new work and echoing Mountain Heritage Trust pieces with existing works. Reflective, and at times playful, the intention is to create a narrative which helps in the interpretation or reinterpretation of these Mountain Heritage pieces and his own artworks.

Sometimes the comparisons are quite literal, such as Derek’s ongoing collection of photographs of lost or abandoned gloves presented adjacent to a single

mitt from an Everest expedition, not lost but carefully kept as part of the MHT archive. Other comparisons seem more oblique but still compelling, such as the

hob-nailed boots produced for the film Five Days, One Summer starring Sean Connery. Connery’s stunt double was a recognised mountaineer, Paul Nunn – who wore these boots which at first appear to be real antique equipment, but on closer inspection are clearly grossly exaggerated and impractical. In response Eland presents his From Hadrian’s Wall With Love which at first glance seems to be the genuine article, but after a little time unfolds into a humorously over-

the-top parody. Paul Nunn, meanwhile, the wearer of those hob-nail boots, would have accompanied Chris Bonington on his 1975 Everest expedition, but was not properly acclimatised for the altitudes involved.

For the Eland, the adventures continue with the publication of the book “In Our Own Words” about his time as a war artist in Afghanistan, alongside an exhibition the original work at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, in November 2014.

THE MOUNTAIN HERITAGE TRUST

The Mountain Heritage Trust, founded in 2000 and based in Penrith, preserves the vibrant history of British mountaineering and mountain culture. MHT makes its Collections relevant and accessible via exhibitions, events and new projects, such as this current display and through the ongoing exhibition at Keswick Museum.

From the home crags to the Alps, the Himalaya and the greater ranges,

British climbers and mountaineers have left an incredible legacy of dreams and achievements. MHT exists to collect, preserve and promote these stories.

www.mountain-heritage.org

You can follow MHT on Twitter @MHT_Info.

RICHARD FISHER

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Looking down into Hollow Stones, Scafell, Richard Fisher

Richard Fisher was born at Wythburn, Thirlmere, in 1925. After war service, he was apprenticed for five years at the Keswick School of Industrial Arts learning silver-smithing and woodcarving. He subsequently attended various art courses at Farnham, Hull, Hamburg and Gottingen School of Art.

Richard’s work can be seen in local churches and in various locations around the country. He has been a skier and mountaineer for most of his life and was a founder member of Keswick Mountain rescue team.

For ADVENTURES Richard is presenting paintings of climbers and mountain rescue teams set against a Lakeland backdrop. The misty landscapes look unforgiving and foriegn, and the contrasting figures making their way through them seem to be beset by adveristy. The bright orange of their clothing echo the suspended red rescue stretcher that is inching its way down Derek Eland’s painting Mountain Rescue, that hangs opposite in the exhibition.

OLI ROBSON

Oli Robson is a sculptor who works primarily in wood. Oli is a tree surgeon and uses leftover parts of the trees he works on for sculptures, finding forms in the knotted and twisted pieces of wood. Oli’s series of sculptures for ADVENTURES is called Cambium Climbing, named for Vascular Cambium, the woody part of

a plant’s structure. Oli spoke with Cumbrian Climbing expert Roy Kenyon , and as a result of these conversations his objects tell a pocket history of climbing equipment through wood.

  1. Chouinard Axe: The first ice axe designed by Yvon Chouinard with a curved pick. I started my work with this axe. This was the first major leap in axe technology.
  2. Ice Hammer: Again made by Chouinard, this axe features a heavily defined curved pick drawn from his previous ideas for the way axes should be.
  3. Terrodactyl: A classic axe, again a trend setter for axes to come. Featuring a down turned straight pick. A real knuckle basher.
  4. Predator: This were the first axes to feature a curved shaft. Another break though that current axes owe their design to.
  5. Quark: The final axe I studied during my research into Ice Axe evolution.
  6. Giant Axe: Made from a curved Ash branch, I just knew that was it’s purpose.
  7. Cambium Cam: The first wood piece I made that led me to look at all aspects of climbing gear and how to represent them using wood.
  8. Stoppers, Wires, Nuts & Rocks: Based on the simplest protection. Originally nicked railway bolts and knots were used, tied in a length of rope placed into cracks in the rock.
  9. Pegs & Pitons: An idea that boomed in Yosemite – pegs that are hammered into cracks until secure. Some are made from the same steel used in rockets.
  10. Climbing holds: Having climbed for many years, I always liked the texture and quirky shapes found in wooden holds.

MARK GIBBS AND

ANDREAS PALMÉN

Mark Gibbs is a Carlisle-based artist who works primarily in painting and sculpture. His work has been exhibited internationally and he has been shortlisted for the Wildlife Artist of the Year 5 times.

Andreas Palmén is a freelance photographer based in Umeå, Sweden. He is specialized in portrait, editorial and scientific photography. Andreas has a

multidisciplinary background with a M.Sc. in population genetics and conservation biology and photographic training as assistant to the Vanity Fair photographer Jonas Fredwall Karlsson. He is represented by Folio Images in Stockholm.

Mark and Andreas have selected work for ADVENTURES based on a collaborative discourse, leading to a range of complementary images, paintings and sculpture.

MARK GIBBS

For a while now my work has felt a Northern chill. I’ve been making; animals of tundra, moor and forest, paintings of their habitat, and embedding images in an ice-like resin.

I’m influenced by contemporary environmental issues such as climate change and deforestation but also by cave art. However, if last year you had told me I would be making work inspired by photographs of ice breakers, I would have been surprised. That’s creativity for you- it’s an inner adventure; you never know where it’s going to lead.

That’s a very rich experience, but it’s also very demanding; to work obsessively chasing a hunch… trying to make something which does two opposite things at the same time and isn’t clichéd. If you take my animals as an example, they move from the relative security of realism to an inner sculptural, visceral form… almost deconstructed. It can be uncomfortable but so is climbing a mountain.

This show is about comparing outer and inner adventure, but also participants making connections with each other. I met Andreas on the web via one of his marvellous Musk ox images. I’m delighted to be exhibiting alongside him; I think our work has many points of connection, which have already sparked new possibilities.

ANDREAS PALMÉN

When Rheged’s Curator John Stokes contacted me about the upcoming exhibition “Adventures” at the Rheged Centre I was thrilled. How exiting to be part of a great display and to do it together with artist Mark Gibbs. Then after the first excitement had cooled I started to think about the theme of the exhibition.

How would I relate to the theme and how could my work apply to the idea of adventure? I decided on two contrasting themes within my area of the display. The big adventure as represented by my images from an expedition on the icebreaker Oden in the Bothnian Bay. And the small private adventure would be represented by a collection of contrasting smaller images from the woodlands of northern Sweden.

The Oden is a large Swedish icebreaker, named after the Norse god. It was originally built in 1988 to assist and clear a passage for cargo ships through the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia during wintertime. Soon it was modified to also be able to serve as a research vessel and in 1991 it was the first non-nuclear surface vessel to reach the North Pole. The Oden is 108 m long and has an icebreaking capacity of 1,9 m level ice at 3 knots. During the winter months there are a lot of icebreakers working to keep the seaways open for traffic in the Gulf of Bothnia both from Sweden and Finland, but none is as powerful as the icebreaker Oden.

I boarded Oden at the Port of Luleå in mid-march last year. For one week I had the privilege to be an observer with access to almost all activities on board. This was not one of Oden’s scientific expeditions. Instead it was all about what Oden was designed for in the first place; giving rapid assistance to ships that got stuck in the ice, gathering and leading convoys of cargo ships when the conditions require and in the meantime keeping the seaways as open as possible for traffic.

The contrast between the powerful icebreaker in action and the quiet white icy landscape is striking. After some time it is easy to imagine that you are all alone despite being on a ship but then suddenly you pass by a small colony of grey seals, Halichoerus grypus, with newborn cubs on the ice. When the night falls and if you have a clear sky you can get the opportunity to observe the Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis. With practically no light pollution everything on the sky is as clear and crisp as your breath in the winter night.

Everyone can make their own adventure. It is just a matter of leaving the everyday comfort zone. The adventure is out there and it is up to you to decide when and where to look after it. You decide.

ELIZABETH SHORROCK

Creating the work for this exhibition has in itself been an adventure. The brief was to create work based on Joss Naylor’s career using my own mix of mixed media and bookmaking skills. The research came first and Keith Richardson’s book “Joss” was invaluable and inspirational. I have been walking in these hills since I was 19 but the thought of running up one, let alone a whole succession of them filled me with awe. I also read “Feet in the Clouds” by Richard Askwith, watched the DVD “Iron Man”, went to a fell race (I drew the line at joining in!) and talked to a couple of fell runners.

I wanted my work to tell some of the stories and I have used a mix of maps, my own photographs and etchings, stitch and bookmaking techniques to do so.

Every new exhibition brings its own challenges but this one more than most has stimulated me to try new ways of working and blending different techniques together.

The relatively short time scale for completing the work has at times felt like my own race against the clock but that has been a stimulus to keep going. I keep having more ideas about what I could do, more peaks to climb but am looking forward to having more time to get out into the hills, but to walk not run!

FYNE BOAT KITS

Fyne Boat kits manufacture high quality wooden boat kits. The kits are designed to be hand built by the buyer. The process of assembling, finishing and eventually sailing these boats is quite an undertaking, and in itself an adventure for budding joiners and experience craftsmen alike.

The Expedition Wherry, which appears in the exhibition hanging in an ‘exploded view’ was designed by John C Harris owner and CEO of Chesapeake Light Craft. Harris’s boat design work ranges widely, from dinghies to a 28-foot power catamaran used for surf tours in Nicaragua.

Fine Boat Kits are based in Burneside, near Kendal. Their kits are made to order and more information can be found at www.fyneboatkits.co.uk

MICHAEL THOMPSON SPLINTERBIKE

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The Splinterbike

In 2010, Michael Thompson made a modest bet with his friend James Tully that he could build the world’s first 100% wooden bike. The bet was for £1 and James said that if Michael could build it, he would ride it.

The subsequent 12 months were a whirlwind of designing, prototyping, testing, failing, retesting and eventually an attempt a world landspeed record for a wooden bike. The media got wind of the process and as the record attempt approached Michael found his creation the Splinterbike featured in national newspapers and TV and radio.

Michael’s story is an example of an adventure that doesn’t involve risk to personal safety, nor the need for excessive wealth. Instead, Michael showed a willingness to begin a process where the end was unclear and expose himself to the risk of failure. In the end his success was measured by not only by achieving a world record, but also the Splinterbike’s inclusion in The Power of Making, a major exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

ROY FLEMING

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Roy’s large format camera protected by a plastic sheet during the shoot for ‘Aira Point’

Roy Fleming is a photographer who lives and works in the Eden Valley. Roy’s work stands apart due to his technique, and the equipment he uses. In an increasingly digital age Roy’s photographs are taken exclusively on large-format analogue cameras. Roy walks with his equipment to quite remote sites. There he uses a number of techniques including long-exposure night shots over several hours. The analogue process offers Roy an additional opportunity to work each print by hand during the developing phase. Roy will often carefully expose various areas of the final print to light for different periods of time whilst on the enlarger.

The result is a variation of tone across each print, which allows Roy to brighten and darker areas of the image. Roy will often include diagrams of the exposure and enlargement process on the reverse of his prints.

The process of capturing these images requires Roy to camp overnight, taking shelter from the elements – again demonstrating a conduit between adventure and artistic practise.

ALASTAIR HUMPHREYS

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Alastair Humphreys is a world-renowned adventurer. He has cycled round the world and walked across India. He also promotes his idea of a ‘Micro- adventure’. This is something simple, which anyone can attempt without

specialist equipment, huge personal wealth or corporate backing. Alastair once circumnavigated the M25, and took another small adventure wild swimming along the rural Thames for several days.

For ADVENTURES he had devised a special Micro Adventure that any visitor to the exhibition can attempt for themselves. It can be as long or short as desired, a quick walk in an afternoon or a trek over several nights. The adventure offers a new perspective on familiar environments that one may otherwise rush through during the rigmarole of a busy day-to-day life.

Alastair has written about his own micro adventure which can be found overleaf with photographs Alastair took along the way.

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A Journey Around Your Home

Time Required: From a few hours to a few days Location: Around your home

Means of Transport: Up to you

I hit “send” for the final time and turned off my computer. The end of another working day. It was only then that I decided to do this journey. I had nothing to do that evening and the weather was fine. So I stuffed a sleeping bag, bivvy bag, Therm-a-Rest, water bottle and raincoat into a small bag. I slipped an apple into my pocket. I grabbed my wallet and camera and left the house.

My aim was to make a circle around my home, completing a lap at a sufficient distance from my home so that I would compete the circle in time to get back to my desk for 9am.

This idea appealed for a few reasons. It is cheap and pleasingly simple. And if it suddenly began to pour with rain I could just run back home. It would also help me explore the area around my home, discover new places, and travel through

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familiar places more slowly than I normally do. Even though I was staying close to home I would be going places I had never been. So I did need a map. But I could make do with the map app on my phone for this short trip.

This microadventure was extremely easy. My circle was just 2½ miles from my front door, making a round trip of about 20 miles. But I was surprised by how rewarding, refreshing and enjoyable it turned out to be as well as how much I saw that was completely new to me. In fact, in terms of the effort:reward ratio, this may well be the best microadventure in this book. It is not the size of the journey that matters (as Xavier de Maistre demonstrated in 1790 by writing an entire book about a journey round his room), but the way you approach it.

Another aspect of this idea is that you can repeat it without it becoming repetitive. Increasing or decreasing the size of your circle, even just a little, will give you a completely new journey every time you try it. If you live in a city you probably will want to keep the circle down to a size you can complete in a single day.

The first thing that struck me as I walked out from my house to the edge of my

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circle was just how slowly I was travelling. I was walking a very familiar route. I run here regularly. But I had never pottered down this road before. It seemed very different at walking speed. It helped me understand a little more why people enjoy dog walking (as I said “good afternoon” to an old chap walking his two bearded terriers). There is an appealing rhythm to repeating the same journey every single day and gradually noticing how both the world and you are changing. The slowness and the familiarly allows the brain time to relax and meander. Indeed, a good addition to this journey around your home would be

to take a photograph every hour, on the hour. It would really help the process of slowing down, taking the journey as it comes, and seeking beauty in the most humdrum of settings.

I’ve hurtled through my youth in such a frenzied hurry, always dissatisfied with the now, always certain that the solution lies just beyond the horizon, always pursuing it as fast as I can. Even when I run I feel compelled to push myself hard, feeling somehow that to enjoy the experience is wrong and that if I’m not hurting and gasping and on the verge of puking then I’m not doing it right. So it was

a novel feeling to be just strolling along. Perhaps I’m getting old. Perhaps I’m growing up.

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I climbed a hill and turned right at the top. I had reached the perimeter of my circle. Now I would follow the circle round until I arrived back here again in the morning. I paused on the hilltop and looked around. Clouds drifted steadily from left to right – north to south. The cars on the main road below crept nose to tail through the rush hour crush.

From up there I thought I could probably see the whole route I was going to walk round. It looked quite a long way, an impressive distance to walk. In truth, I knew I’d be back at my desk drinking tea first thing in the morning. It wasn’t really an epic, but it felt like one. In other words, it was a perfect microadventure.

I strolled onwards, eating my Californian apple. Horses grazed in a lush field beside a roaring road. One drank from an old bath filled with water. Apple trees leant over the fence above an old bath, the local fruits ripening nicely. A pied woodpecker burst from one of the trees as I approached, the scarlet beneath its tail flashing as it flew.

The lottery of my chosen circle meant that I was fated to walk a couple of miles alongside the busy road. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. But to my surprise I found it quite relaxing. The world was racing by and it helped emphasise my slowness.

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I turned off the road by an old pub, closed down and ripe for demolition. The windows were boarded, the premises fenced off. Dandelions and saplings pushed through the cracked car park. Sitting in the middle of this deserted car park, shirt off and enjoying the evening sunshine, a rotund man casually read his newspaper. Life’s rich tapestry…

It felt good now to be off the roads, following fields and footpaths. The air was filled with the distinctive aroma of summer evenings. Of cut grass and willowherb and cow parsley. I detoured into a small town for food. My feet were weary now and I was hungry.

This was a little town that I visit regularly on errands. But entering it on foot, after hours of walking, made it feel different. It seemed more interesting than somewhere I can drive to in five minutes to go to the Doctor or the butcher. I bought food then returned to the fields to eat it.

I have done this so often around the world. The sensations of being hungry and weary and enjoying resting and eating are very familiar to me from my other adventures. So this was perhaps the strangest feeling of this microadventure so

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far. Because it reminded me of one of my “proper” journeys, out there faraway in the world. Yet from the field where I was eating I could see a signpost to where I live. It felt surprisingly adventurous, refreshing and wild out there just 2½ miles from home.

Darkness fell. But I decided to keep walking a little longer in order to savour the darkness. It had been a long, light summer but the nights were closing in now. This was the first real darkness I had experienced since summer settled in. A choir was practising in a church. The door was open and I listened to them as

I walked by. Being out after dark feels very different to the daytime. Even in this safe and familiar landscape I caught myself searching for a place to sleep – a sanctuary – like a fugitive or wild animal. It was odd to feel this so close to home. It was also a reminder of how simple it is to step out of your comfort zone and to experience familiar things in an unfamiliar way.

I climbed a hill away from another small town and settled down to sleep at the edge of the wheat field up there. It was dark and deserted and peaceful. I could see city lights and a police car racing through the night. Up there was a good place for a fugitive, even one just temporarily fleeing from his computer and the madness of normal life.

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It’s early morning now. I sing “Here Comes the Sun” as I do every single day when I’m on a trip and watching the sun rise. I sang it for the first time when cycling through the thin air and bitterly cold winter dawns of the high Andes 15 years ago. I see no reason to stop now. So I sing as I walk. I’m looking forward to breakfast.

But as I am completing the last part of my circle the sky darkens and a summer rainstorm bursts upon me. Almost instantly I am soaked. However, I’m nearly home. I won’t be wet for long.

So I choose not to let the rain annoy me or get me down. For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. If you are able to persuade yourself to enjoy rain (sometimes easier said than done), then it can feel sublime, especially in summertime. The world is raw and primordial. It is a warm morning. The heavy rain plasters my hair and shirt. I feel more content than I have for weeks. In an hour or so I’ll be changed and back at my desk, ready for just another ordinary working day. But this has been such an out of the ordinary beginning to the day. I smile and pick up my pace for home.

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Perhaps you would like to give this idea a go yourself. School maths lessons may have been some time ago, so I’ll help you out with the calculations!

Where you live, how you travel, how hard you want to push yourself: these factors all determine the radius of the circle you’ll choose to make:

2πr + 2r

where ‘r’ is the distance you must travel from home before beginning your circle.

Distance from home (miles) Length of your journey (miles) 1. 8.28

2. 6.57

3. 24.85

4. 33.13

5. 41.41

6. 49.70