From Cheshire views to trundling around the local tip

This blog has been supplied by Hilary Mines, Founder and Managing Director of trundl, the walking app that turns everyday walks into charity donations.

I have always been a walker. Since I was little, my Mum and Dad, who are still keen walkers in their 80’s, took me and my big brother out hiking on holiday in Wales, up the Yorkshire peaks of their own childhoods and over the Cotswolds hills near our home. Always one for a muddy puddle, I still delight in walking in the rain and can’t help but regularly test whether my boots keep the water out.

There’s something very special about walking isn’t there? I don’t know about you, but there’s a feeling of euphoria that squeezes me between the ribs when I look at a view. Especially a long distance one, with only bird song to be heard.  While I now have rather dicky hips, which make walking quite painful sometimes, these moments make it very worthwhile and I wouldn’t swap it for resting up at home. For, once the blood flow kicks in, the pain-relief is priceless. Better than any pharma solution.

I moved to Cheshire over 30 years ago and landed in Macclesfield. To this day, one of my favourite views in Cheshire, of which there are many, is from the paths at Teggs Nose Country Park, which is ideal for people who can’t walk far or need wheelchair access.  From the car park, take the good path that runs adjacent to the road. On a clear day, the view that covers the beautiful Cheshire planes, the iconic Jodrell Bank, the Manchester skyline and stretches right across to Liverpool and beyond is absolutely spectacular.  If you get the chance, keep walking and pass through the kissing gate and take the left path up the stone steps onto the tracks to your left. Here you pass the old mining machinery and you’re taken back in time to see how the mines defined the area. Carry on a bit further until, on the left, your views open out across to the reservoir at Trentabank and up towards Shuttlingsloe. A completely different perspective and just as beautiful. For me, this scene is at its best with rain clouds forming under a moody sky,  just like the shot that I captured when I met up and walked with Jen Lowthrop of the Peak District National Park when she undertook her 1000 mile hike across ten of the UK National Parks in 10 weeks. 

In my 30’s I moved to Northwich, my parents now also living on the Welsh/ Cheshire border. This is where I found some lovely quirky walks, such as the Chester City walls, and one of my favourites; Carey Park in Northwich. With its nature reserve hidden behind the town‘s municipal tip, it always amazes me that many locals still don’t know it’s there. The area opens up and connects with Marbury Park and the Anderton boat lift, with good paths interconnecting each other.  There are bird hides overlooking Newmanns Flash along the canal and through the different parks you can walk a couple of kilometres or make a day of it. Being mostly flat with lots of accessible roots, there is something for everybody on this route.  

I could write a book rather than a blog about all of my favourite walks, but alas I was asked to pick just a few.  I hope they will inspire you to go and explore “your local Cheshire” and maybe even remind you to rediscover places from those lockdown walks.  It’s so easy to hanker after places further afield, but in Cheshire we’re so lucky to have a diverse countryside, from flat plains to sandstone trails, and fantastic views from castles at Beeston to The Cloud at Bosley.

There is one message that I would love to leave you with from the experience of someone who has had their range restricted by injury.  Don’t take it for granted that you will always be able to get up in those hills. Walk up every one as if it might be your last chance to do so, because you never know when life might change.  And when that change comes, be sure then to embrace the short walks around you and know that these too are just as lovely in their own sweet way.

Bio:

Hil is the founder of the purposeful walking app trundl. In her late forties, circumstances changed dramatically. Not only did she require urgent surgery on a compressed spinal cord, in 2021 she learned that her painful legs were a sign of undiagnosed hip-dysplasia.  Finding herself thus unable to walk the long distances she had previously, it quite literally changed her life.

Always one to look for the positive, Hil’s slower walks brought a new perspective on the physical and mental health benefits that even short walks can bring. This triggered the thought: What if an everyday walk could make a social difference and raise money for charity. What impact could we have together for collective good?

 In 2022, this idea came to life in the walking for charity app, trundl. And since then Hil, along with the trundl team has gone on to win an Innovate UK Fast Start grant award and has been a panel speaker at Jodrell Bank as part of the Cheshire + Warrington Economic Forum.

So if you see a cheery woman trundling along with her bright purple walking poles, be sure to stop and say hello and swap your favourite walking routes with her.