This month’s challenge:
★★★Take a walk alongside a body of water, be it a river, a gurgling stream or a wide river delta ★★★
☆☆☆ And let us know about your river walk by posting here on our Active10 forum using the hashtag #RiverWalk in your title ☆☆☆
I had difficulty choosing May’s chapter for this month’s challenge. As they are 52 chapters in Annabel Street’s book, one for each week, my strategy had been to use the contents page where I divided the book into 4-5 chapters, and then each month to chose one from a set of 4-5 chapters. Her journey follows roughly the seasons, with rainy runs being in a rain-rich season, and this way, I could keep roughly to the flow of the seasons.
However, the four chapters I set myself to choose from for our May challenge sounded all so good: 18 - Walk with a Dog, 19 - Amble Amid Trees, 20 - Walk to Remember, and the first chapter I ended up choosing: 17 - Follow a River!
But the river walk chapter won out! I’m a sucker for walking, running or ambling beside the water. I’ve moved often but have lived most of my life beside or near some kind of water, whether the broad, majestic Rhine River, the salty North Sea or the calming, beautiful, vista-rich beauty of the Clyde Delta.
I’m landlocked now in the east part of Cheshire, but my solace is that a culverted stream runs underneath our courtyard and garden, and I’ve been dreaming about how to “daylight” the garden part of it.
And my favourite running route involves a stretch that follows just that stream, by then openly gurgling past river benches of aromatic wild garlic, passing a long row of tall mature trees, and then sneaking away again underneath the railway to make its way back down a culverted section through the other part of our village.
This chapter of Annabel’s book also didn’t disappoint and gave the river walk its full due. It lists how walks beside rivers tend to give your mind just the perfect balance between meditation-inducing continuous gurgling or swishing sounds with some attention-alerting events of nature and wildlife, be it a fish, a swooshing of a willow or the encountering of a rushing rapid. Rivers you follow, without the need for a map, holding your attention to the place you are walking in.
The river is one of the greatest walking mates you can have.
So in this month’s challenge, seek out that body of water, that pond, stream or river that you can befriend and follow along on one of your next walks.
So our challenge in short:
★★★Take a walk along side a body of water, be it a river, a gurgling stream or a wide river delta ★★★
☆☆☆ And let us know about your river walk by posting here on our Active10 forum using the hashtag #RiverWalk” in your title ☆☆☆
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Readings from
Annabel Street (2021): 52 ways to walk.
The surprising signs of walking for wellness and joy, one week at a time. Chapter 14 : Walk with your Ears
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For reference, our first challenges from January are here
★ January Challenge - Walk in the Cold
healthunlocked.com/active10...
★ February Challenge - Take a 12-min Walk
healthunlocked.com/active10...
★ March Challenge - Take a City Smell Walk healthunlocked.com/active10...
★ April Challenge -Walk with your Ears healthunlocked.com/active10...
#RiverWalk May Challenge - Follow a River