| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Contact: | |
| When: | Fortnightly mornings 1st Tuesday and 3rd Thursday of the month. |
| Cost: | Nil |
"Walking is the best possible exercise" - Thomas Jefferson
"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking" - Friedrich Nietzsche
To find out for yourself if the above quotes are true, come and join us for walks in our wonderful countryside. If you are not sure, contact the group leader and try a few walks to see if you like it.
All walks are circular, usually about five to six miles long.
We walk in different areas around North Hampshire and Surrey.
The walks are chosen and led by volunteers from within the group.
We typically walk from 10.15am until 1:00pm. This is almost always followed by an optional pub lunch.
If you would like to contact the group by email click on the Group Contact above.
Dates for 2025
- Tuesday, 2nd September
- Thursday, 18th September
- Tuesday, 7th October
- Thursday 23rd October
- Tuesday, 4th November
- Thursday, 20th November
- Tuesday, 2nd December
- Thursday, 18th December
Useful resources
Walking apps
There are a number of walking apps that can help you to find walks and navigate around those walks. Some require an annual subscription, typically around £30 a year. Here is a list of the common walking applications, in no particular order...
- AllTrails : has a good selection of curated walks. Allows you to store walks in folders, which is very useful feature. It can record walks too. Like most walking apps, you can input walks in the standardised walk-specification format known as GPX.
- Outdoor Active : this is similar to AllTrails.
- Komoot : This is similar to AllTrails also, but it costs about £50 a year. There is a free version, but it doesn't have the ability to store to folders, which limits its use somewhat.
- OS Maps : This is the Ordinance Survey's app. It has improved significantly in recent months. Creating your own walks in this application is now really easy because it has a "snap-to-route" feature - all the walking routes are shown on the map, and you simply select the start and end points along a route and the app will fill in the rest. There are now a lot of curated walks too.
The benefits of walking
From Harvard Health, the scientifically-proven benefits of walking include ...
- Lowers blood pressure
- Fights heart disease
- Reduces the risk for type 2 diabetes
- Relieves depression. The wonderful Michael Mosley popularised the idea of walking first thing in the morning. Research has shown that this maximises walking's impact on depression (it's possibly something to do with the sun hitting your eyes and resetting your body clocks)
- Improves memory
- Adds healthy years to your life
- Lose weight .. "Counteracts the effects of weight-promoting genes. Harvard researchers looked at 32 obesity-promoting genes in over 12,000 people to determine how much these genes actually contribute to body weight. Among the study participants who walked briskly for about an hour a day, the effects of those genes were cut in half."
- Reduces the risk of certain cancers
- Boosts immune function
