Kate Humble reveals her favourite walks around the world

 

CLOSE TO HOME 

 

 

I’d say the best walk is always the one from your own front door, one that’s comforting and familiar, especially if you’ve been away or you’re feeling a bit jangled. You return to your patch, you re-establish your territory and get the news, like a dog coming back home and rubbing itself on the banister. My version of that is a three-miler starting right outside my kitchen. I’m so lucky I live in the Wye Valley: I’ve got woods on one side, fields on the other, and lots of hills – which is great if you’re on a quest for the perfect bum. (Give me this over the gym any day!) There are lots of neighbours to pass, too, which means a chat about how everyone’s sheep are doing – and I can “borrow” a few eggs if I need them as well. 

 

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE 

 

 

My best big walk is the Otter Trail on South Africa’s Garden Route. It’s an extraordinarily beautiful slice of coast, though the real attraction is that it’s limited to just 12 people a day, and it’s completely wild. There are huts to sleep in, but you have to carry everything you need: food, bedding, the works. It was the first time I’d had a sense of a world without cars and shops and buildings, and I went a bit Huckleberry Finn. At the end of it, the place where you pick up the bus to return to the start and collect your car is just a small village – but there were people around and the odd car, and I was completely panic-stricken and thought, “I want to go back! I want to go back and live in my hut!” 

 

BOOKISH ON TWEED

 

 

I love bookshops, and one of my favourites is Mainstreet Trading in St Boswells, in the Scottish Borders. That part of the world is always gorgeous, but last autumn I caught one of those beautiful October afternoons: soft golden light, the trees turning, leaves spiralling down like confetti. The town sits on the banks of the Tweed, and there’s a lovely walk on St Cuthbert’s Way, along the river. You cross it on a pretty iron footbridge and can climb up to a temple, find a huge statue of William Wallace and then visit Dryburgh Abbey: those monks may have lived lives of chastity and hard work, but they chose pretty amazing places to do it. I then crossed back over the river and followed it back to St Boswells just in time for tea. (Did I mention that Mainstreet also has a great café and delicious cake?) 

 

EXPLORING THE CITYSCAPE 

 

 

Just because you’re stuck in town, doesn’t mean you can’t walk. I lived in London for 20 years and you end up with a skewed idea of distance, going everywhere by car or bus. But when I was recording the audio version of my book Thinking on My Feet, I found I could walk from Notting Hill (where I was staying) to Clerkenwell (where I was recording) as quickly as getting a cab. And I got to enjoy Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Soho, the British Museum, all the window-peeking, street characters and snatches of conversation en route. It was an urban thrill. 

 

TIPSY IN DEEPEST FRANCE 

 

 

If you ever get a chance to do a French village’s “night walk”, grab it! On the border of the Dordogne and Limousin, I’ve got a tiny cabin, completely off-grid, with no electricity, and water from the lake, where you can just go feral and grow a beard. It’s three miles from the nearest village, but every so often word will go out through the area that there’s a night walk – and the entire population will descend on the village and set off through the countryside following arrows made of flour that people have left out. Every couple of miles there’ll be a clearing, and trestle tables heaving with cheeses and meats and wonderfully rough local wine the farmers have made. It’s kids in pushchairs, grannies in wheelchairs, it’s dark, no one’s brought torches, everyone’s tipsy, and you all (somehow!) end up back in the village square drinking brandy… 

 

AS TOLD TO ED GRENBY