R is for rivers

Tumbling fast through the hills, relaxing into deep pools, eddying through an estuary to the sea: a river is a creature of ever-changing moods and a fascinating companion on a walk. They’re not just changeable but agents of change, cutting through the rock in their upper reaches and depositing that silt in the slower lower sections, and you can trail many rivers from source to sea. The Severn Way follows Britain’s longest for 224 miles from its birth on Plynlimon in wildest mid Wales to its estuary at Bristol. The Wye springs from the same mountain and feeds the same estuary, but the 136 miles of its Wye Valley Walk chart a different course through the Anglo-Welsh borderlands. The Thames Path National Trail treads 184 miles beside Britain’s most famous river from the Cotswolds to the Capital, and the Test Way in Hampshire walks 44 miles near the ginclear, trout-filled waters of one of England’s most beautiful chalk streams (above). These are just a taster of the nation’s riverside routes and if no established trail tracks your favourite, why not piece together your own trail as close to its banks as possible? The Scavaig would make a quick study. It’s Britain’s shortest river at under 500 yards, but it’s one spectacular run from Loch Coruisk in the heart of Skye’s Black Cuillin to Loch Scavaig.

WALK HERE: Find walks on the Severn Way between Garthmyl and Newtown, by the Wye at Symonds Yat, and beside the River Test at Stockbridge at www.lfto.com/bonusroutes.