Route Summary Table

      FOREWORD

      I can’t think of anyone better qualified to write about our national trails than Paddy Dillon. He’s been afflicted by wanderlust for more years than even he cares to admit to, having a compelling and delectable addiction to wandering the lonely byways that lace our wild areas at home and abroad. But Paddy has never been content to simply seek out and enjoy for himself the rich experiences that wild places bestow on us, for he suffers from an imperative to record what he sees along the way, so that others may follow in his footsteps and gain from his accumulated knowledge.

      Paddy is generous in his sharing of knowledge. Arguably the UK’s most prolific guidebook writer, accumulating experience, information and hard facts as he walks, he records the details of his routes on a day-by-day basis, on the route itself, via a tiny hand-held computer. I make this point not to applaud the functionality of electronic devices but to illustrate Paddy’s commitment to the task in hand. One of the joys of hiking long-distance trails, for me and many like me, is to escape from such contrivances, to connect with the land without the aid of man-made inventions, to return to a simpler, more nomadic way of life that releases us from the pressures and tensions of 21st-century living. I’ve experimented with Paddy’s technique of writing on the hoof and I’ve found that it takes more commitment and energy than I’m prepared to give. The point I make is that Paddy Dillon works very hard indeed to collate the up-to-date information that is necessary to compile a guide for others to follow, and that is why his guidebooks can be followed, and enjoyed, with confidence.

      I recall meeting Paddy on the GR20 in Corsica, that wonderful mountain-clinging route that has been described as the toughest waymarked trail in the world. We were slavishly following the route along the tight and narrow crests of mountain ridges, in and out of deep rocky cauldrons and over steep, vertiginous crags. Paddy, on the other hand, had been nipping off-route here and there collecting information for a forthcoming guidebook – checking out village accommodation and restaurants, asking what bergeries sold cheese or milk, seeking out alternative routes for those less keen to tackle the steep sections, talking to local folk, prodding them for information and all the time collating the facts in his little mobile computer. It quickly became very clear that while we were on holiday, Paddy was working very hard indeed, and it’s such hard graft that makes Paddy Dillon’s guidebooks amongst the best.

      Paddy is familiar with all the national trails of England and Wales and the official long distance footpaths of Scotland. He’s spent a lifetime wandering the routes, and he would be among the first to suggest that they constitute a magnificent, if underused, resource. My hope is that the publication of this fine book, overlaid with Paddy’s enthusiasm, might spawn a new generation of long-distance backpacker, a newer breed of hiker who will enjoy and care for this wonderfully varied collection of routes so that our children and grandchildren may enjoy them as we have done.

      Cameron McNeish, 2007 Editor, TGO Magazine