The Easter holidays were approaching. After a busy term at school, our children were worn out, wan-faced and slumped over the iPad.
“The sun’s shining,” I moaned to their dad. “Why aren’t we out there?”
Mat and I love hiking. Well, loved hiking. We’ve not done much of it since the kids arrived. We always hoped to get them hooked, too, when they were old enough — and now, aged 11, 9 and 7, they’re in that sweet spot where they can climb a stile, but don’t want most walks to end in a snog outside Nando’s. With holidays beckoning, could we stride out as a family and trade the instant gratification of YouTube for a real adventure?
“Blisters bother, laces unravel and nettles attack
Like all the best adventures, this one starts in our downstairs loo. That’s where I stumble on a local magazine’s route guide to the Avon Valley Path: a 34-mile walk from our home town, Salisbury, through the New Forest to Christchurch, on the Dorset coast.
Nervously, I show the mag to Mat. He sees the section on Suggested Overnight Pub Stops and he’s in. Now I just have to work on the kids.
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“Who wants to go on a 30-mile hike?” No one. No way. Our eldest, Poppy, 11, says she’s scared. Of what? “Being bored to death. And blisters.” Stan, 9, takes it manfully, but worries about going four days without access to a Bon Jovi video. Rose, 7, is indignant: “I’ve already learnt it’s bad when you say we’re going on a short walk. Now you’re actually calling it a long walk? I want to faint.”
She doesn’t, to her credit, even when she’s dragged on a brisk shopping trip for maps and wet-weather gear. Mat tries on something between a Barbour and a bivouac. “Can you love me in this cagoule?” he asks. Short answer: no. But it’ll keep the rain off, so we buy it.
In the event, our departure day dawns bright. We, less so. By the time we’ve read the Sunday papers, packed, repacked — we’re carrying all our own kit — and found the house keys, it’s 1pm. Tramping single file down our suburban street in shorts, new boots and backpacks, we strike an uneasy balance between It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and The Goonies.
Arriving at Salisbury Cathedral, we mark the official start of the Avon Valley Path walk by promptly stopping for coffee. And five buns. The resultant caffeine and sugar rush powers us out of town and into our first real countryside. “Fields!” the kids yell, speeding through a neon sea of rapeseed. “Bunnies! Butterflies! Blossom!”
It can’t last. The next few miles see a slow, sweaty crash: blisters bother, laces unravel and nettles attack. The kids lag behind, foraging for dock leaves. Rose is obsessing about her promised pub supper: “Will there be parsnips?” Then, suddenly, the scene opens up: the shining Avon is once more alongside us, and the kids sprint to overtake us.
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On reaching Downton and our pub for the night, the Bull, the kids revel in the sheer joy of a) not walking and b) finding a telly in their room. Supper down the road at the Wooden Spoon perfects the cure: hair tousled, cheeks ruddy, the elder two tear into sticky pork ribs. Rose communes blissfully with a giant parsnip while Mat and I knock back pints and resolve to reframe the exercise as a (phenomenally slow) four-day pub crawl.
Next day, the hangover hits. Heels are bleeding, boots seem to have got heavier, and when did England suddenly get so flipping hot and sunny?
The New Forest saves us. Broad oak branches provide a canopy and shade. Wild ponies come to nod us on. We trudge past thatched cottages curtained with wisteria and woods filled with bluebells. Cresting a steep hill, we survey a great sweep of the Avon and count more than 50 swans in the buttercup-filled flood meadows. “Are you sucking it in?” Mat asks. “I’m sucking in the pain,” Rose replies.
Which becomes the rhythm of our walk: bursts of joy among miles of just putting one foot in front of the other. When the kids start to tire, I dispense snacks. Mat decants the contents of their backpacks into his (increasingly huge) one. Every game you’ve ever played on a family road trip, we wheel out and pimp up, with some success. Marshalled into a “nature contest”, somewhere between a treasure hunt and The Hunger Games, the kids scramble to bring us broken birds’ eggs, bristly caterpillars and a dead snake.
And they talk. For hour after hour, arms slung around each other: “Would you rather die or go to Mars?” Rose breaks off only to wee, generally in the undergrowth, but also on her boots, her bag and her father. Eleven miles later, the kids are piling into the Compasses Inn, in Damerham, ready to drink (“Fizzy orange!”), eat (“MEAT!”) and sleep.
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Day three, and it’s the old folk who are cracking: Mat’s broken by two nights in a family room (“Like sleeping in a zoo”), while I’ve developed a pustulating tonsil. It’s now me who’s envious of the kids tapping into nature’s endorphins. They get their thrills from the sight of a stag, the whack of a woodpecker, the touch of their first electric fence. “It didn’t feel great,” Stan says, promptly going back for more. As their warm little hands slip ours, Mat and I muse on how the kids are just walking through our lives. Except for Rose, who’s sitting on his shoulders.
By the end of day four, Rose speaks for us all: “Whenever I see something flat, I just want to put my bottom on it.” But we’ve made it. We’re on the quay in Christchurch, waving at the boats and batting the seagulls from our ice creams. Too soon, it’s time to catch our train back to Salisbury.
Safely home, the children reunite with their iPad while Mat and I tot up our final score: 45 miles, including diversions, but a fleeting, unforgettable moment of family time. As for the kids, would they dare do it again? “Yes!” they yell, distracted by a Bon Jovi video. “As long as there’s parsnips,” Rose qualifies.
For route notes, search hants.gov.uk for “Avon Valley”