Author | Writer | Photographer
BBC Countryfile magazine’s Great Days Out section, in the February 2019 issue, looks at Lost Worlds, and I’ve got a piece in there highlighting the varied lost worlds of Shropshire.
Limited space meant that I wasn’t able to include any detailed walking routes, but if you’d like to explore the areas I mention in more detail, check out the following links below:
It’s double-issue time at The People’s Friend this week, with a bumper 144 pages in this week’s issue (dated 8th December). It’s the one with my travel article, Lovely Ledbury on the front cover.
Simon Whaley enjoys a journey around this delightful Devonshire City.
‘Climb the oak tree,’ says the tourist guide, ‘but think laterally.’ She winks as she hands over a map of Plymouth city to help me explore. I have to admit, it’s been a few years since I last climbed a tree. But this wasn’t quite what I was expecting to do in Plymouth.
This Devonian city is sandwiched between two rivers – the Plym in the east and the Tamar to the west. It overlooks Plymouth Sound, a natural bay with deep water channels, perfect for commercial shipping and the Royal Navy’s warships and submarines.
Check out the April issue of BBC Countryfile magazine for my Firth of Flowers piece in their Great Days Out section.
Check out my feature in the April 2018 issue of Coast magazine, packed full of ideas of what to do with A Weekend in Plymouth.
Check out the March 2018 issue of Outdoor Photography magazine and inside you’ll find my photo of Aberdyfi in the Viewpoint section.
Fancy sleeping where your favourite writer lived, worked or holidayed? Simon Whaley suggests six of the UK’s best literary stays.
They stand, like two rows of regimented soldiers, lining the long ridge of Shropshire’s Linley Hill. It was once thought these sentinels were planted by Napoleonic prisoners of war, but tree-dating technology proves that these beech trees were planted circa 1740, long before there was even a Napoleonic prisoner-of-war camp at nearby Bishop’s Castle.
“Every time someone opens these lock gates,” says Mike, the engineer, “we lose 40,000 gallons of water.”
We’re standing at the bottom of Lock 72 of the Trent & Mersey Canal in Middlewich, Cheshire, thanks to one of the Canal and River Trust’s Open Days.
Check out the Spring issue of Country Walking magazine, for my ‘middle’ route around Newcastle on Clun. It roams the ‘middle’ of nowhere, found somewhere along the ‘middle’ of Offa’s …