🕒 2-3 minute learn
I really feel extraordinarily lucky to have had an prolonged Christmas break, with a complete wonderful 2 weeks off. I like strolling in winter and used the AllTrails app to seek out native nation parks, all beneath an hour away that I didn’t know existed. Right here I share a few these walks at nation parks in north Staffordshire.
Earlier than I get into it, regardless of mentioning AllTrails just a few instances, this put up is just not a collaboration, it’s an app I subscribe to and one thing I exploit and it deserves some kudos!
An enormous hill stroll is all good, however generally, after the surplus of Christmas, all we wish is to blow away the cobwebs for an hour or two. While a rustic park won’t be my first alternative of locations to stroll, this winter I found that they’ll present a lot greater than I imagined.
I’ve admitted earlier than that I’m not nice at navigation, or it’s most likely fairer to say, I’m not assured in my skills which suggests after I go for a solo stroll, I don’t just like the added nervousness of probably wandering off-route.
I began utilizing the AllTrails app just a few years in the past however have solely not too long ago began actively utilizing it extra, specifically, to find new locations to stroll. Residing in Cheshire means each Derbyshire and Staffordshire are fast to get to, and each Silverdale Nation Park and Greenway Financial institution Nation Park each occurred to be in Staffordshire.
Removed from pedestrian, a few of the nation parks I found over Christmas and the brand new 12 months, offered every little thing I often search for in a stroll – prompting a change in perspective in direction of what I had beforehand regarded, reasonably dismissively, as being a considerably boring alternative for a stroll.
Greenway Financial institution Nation Park, Staffordshire Moorlands
I adopted the Greenway Financial institution Heritage Path which is a 6.3k round route with good parking that’s free, and bathroom amenities (relying on which carpark you select).
The route is straightforward to comply with and is usually flat, with a few quick inclines, offering loads of extra paths to discover. The stroll takes in ruins, historical woodland, reservoirs, a waterfall, streams and even a sacred effectively.
With a lot of stops and taking it very sluggish on an icy winter day, it took beneath 2 hours to finish however I discovered greater than sufficient to maintain me and it is a nation park I’ll be returning to to see the way it adjustments every season.
Silverdale Nation Park, Silverdale, Staffordshire
It is a beautiful simple 2.9k round strolling route round a park, created on the location of a former colliery, now a Web site of Organic Significance. Parking right here is free, however restricted.
The route could be very simple to comply with and even within the depths of winter, it was teeming with hen life. Common with canine walkers, there’s a sluggish downhill part to start with adopted by a shorter, steeper uphill part in direction of the tip of the stroll.
I like walks with loads of benches and seating – for me a stroll is one thing I like to do at a leisurely tempo and I at all times search someplace quiet to take a seat and do a nature meditation too, which helps me to get probably the most out of a stroll and actually join with the vitality of a spot.
This little nation park is ideal for a stretch of the legs with some surprisingly fairly views given it’s so near Newcastle-Underneath-Lyme metropolis centre. Early morning it was very quiet, although by the point I used to be leaving it had began to get a bit of busier.
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