Visit the National Trail's site
or select a trail from the list below
http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk
As I write this there are only eleven days left to the Christmas weekend. We wish you all a very Happy Christmas and New Year!
Christmas preparations began early in our house this year, as my daughter is living in New Zealand and so Christmas stocking and advent calendar had to be bought and sent back in November. She delights in telling me how hot and sunny it is every time we speak on the phone. Yesterday it was so hot that she could only bear to sit out for twenty minutes at a time - how awful!
Of course it wouldn't be Christmas if it wasn't cold and dark and wet would it?
I will be planning some walks over the holidays almost certainly along stretches of the Cotswold Way which is our closest National Trail. This Trail will be officially opened as a National Trail in May next year so watch out for that event. My two springer spaniels love to go out walking whatever the weather, the wetter and muddier the better. People often pass us on walks and laugh - grateful not to be taking such revolting muddy dogs home with them!
I hope we get some of those bright, sunny, clear days which will tempt you out onto the Trails. If so, why not take your camera with you and take some photographs to enter our new Competition.
During January we will exhibit photographs you send in by email and we will have prizes for the 10 best adult and 10 best under 16 entries.
If writing poetry, prose or limericks is more your style, send those in too and we will publish the best of those and give out some prizes. (keep them clean though - we are easily shocked here in Cheltenham!). email Cheltenham with your entries.
Once you get home from walking on the Trail and make a hot drink, log on to the website and fill in our user survey questionnaire. We will be using this data during January and February to produce the 2006 User Survey report to compare with the 2005 User Survey
Best wishes Jane
Hi, Terri here. May I join Jane in wishing you and yours a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I don't have any muddy dogs but I do have a 3-year old grandson. One of the presents under his tree is a pair of dinky walking boots so that he can join Nanny and Grandad on their rambles - that's if we can tear him away from Bob the Builder, Postman Pat, Buzz Lightyear et al!
Looking forward to sharing some of your seasonal National Trail memories - see you in the New Year.
All the best
Terri
Send in the digital photographs you took whilst out on the Trails over Christmas (with a caption so we know where you were) or a poem or limerick. Let us know whether you are in the under 16 or adult group. There will be prizes for the best 10 in each group and we will show the entries on the web site throughout January and February.
email us at Cheltenham - Good Luck! Jane
We have had a busy year in National Trails and will be pressing forward with more improvements to the network in 2007. Work has been continuing on replacing stiles, improving signage, building bridges and dealing with the inevitable weather-damage to name but a few tasks. We hosted a vist by a group of South Koreans who were keen to use our experience to help them develop National Trails in their country.
We attended a successful Outdoors Show in Birmingham in March where many of you will have had the chance to talk to some of our National Trail Officers.
The South West Coast Path National Trail was voted the 'best trail' in Britain by the readers of Country Walking - a real testament to the hard work of the Trail team, the land managers and highways authorities involved.
There has been a lot of activity on the Welsh National Trails in 2006. Two new National Trail Officers have been appointed - Helen Tatchell for the Glyndwrs Way and Rob Dingle for Offa's Dyke Trail. Both of these Trails now have web pages on the National Trail website, providing information to our users in the same format as the majority of the Trails, as well as a welsh language version.
Our website developers have also been busy and have introduced Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Leads to our site - click here for more information about this and also downloadable GPS coordinates for attractions and accommodation along the Trails. An example of this on the Cleveland Way pages and more explanation can be found here.
We have also developed a screensaver which you can download on to your computers and enjoy some of the beautiful photographs we have of the Trails. We hope you will take advantage of this using the following link. National Trail Screensaver
One of the first tasks for the New Year will be the analysis of the on-line User Survey for 2006 and the preparation for the 2007 face to face survey which we hope will be completed during the summer.