Ramblings

The theme of this series of Ramblings is 'bonding' and this week Clare walks with a group who bond, not just through walking, but through their shared passion for bell-ringing. Twice a year, Janet Betham and a fellow Janet organise what have become known as "Janets' Jaunts", where a number of bell-ringers gather together for a ramble between two churches. They ring bells at the start of the walk,...

Clare Balding walks with the writer Philip Marsden from his home near the banks of the River Fal out to the Cornish coastal path. Clare and Philip discuss why we react so strongly to certain places and why layers of stories and meaning build up around particular features in the landscape. Producer: Lucy Lunt.

In today's programme Clare Balding walks with a group of medics who have all suffered - as they put it - a 'cardiac event'. With good humour and no real restraint, they gather as often as possible to explore new and familiar routes for friendship and health. The group is made up of GPs, hospital doctors, surgeons and a psychiatrist, and their cardiac experiences range from living with angina to su...

In this new series of Ramblings, Clare Balding explores the way walking can help us bond with other people, the countryside and our history. In this first programme she's invited to take part in the 20th annual walk up to the top of the Stiperstones in Shropshire with a group of men who came together to bond as fathers. Quentin Shaw started the tradition when his sons were at primary school as a w...

Clare Balding enjoys the final leg of The Dales Way in the company of one of the men who designed it, Colin Spearman. Colin, joined by his wife Fleur, explains his intention of linking the industrial conurbations of West Yorkshire with the Lake District. As they walk from Staveley to Bowness, Clare reflects on her experience of the route and how much it has meant to her. Colin , Fleur and Clare ce...

Clare Balding is now really into her stride as she comes close to the end of her journey along The Dales Way, walking from Dent to Sedbergh. The route is one of the most popular in England and enjoyed by thousands every year, mainly thanks to the enthusiastic group of volunteers who run The Dales Way Association. Today she walks with two of their members, Chris Grogan and Kath Doyle who explain wh...

Clare Balding reaches one of the most beautiful stretches of the Dales Way, setting out from Buckden to Beckermonds, in the company of the Chairman of the Long Distance Walking Association, John Sparshatt and his Californian born friend, Randal Metzger. Despite being very familiar with this part of the route, both men infect Clare with their passion for this landscape and their commitment to ensur...

Clare Balding continues her journey along The Dales Way, hiking from Grassington to Kettlewell in the company of two experienced long distance walkers, Aileen Strangham and Brenda Dodd. Clare enjoys their company so much and their tales of taking part in every Great North Run, that they wander off track and have to use all their combined map reading skills to get themselves back onto the right rou...

Clare Balding embarks on the second leg of her journey along The Dales Way, one of England's most loved long distance walking paths. This week she walks from Cavendish Pavilion to Burnsall Bridge in the company of Phil Richards, Access Ranger for the Yorkshire Dales National Park and photographer and blogger, Charles Hawes. Producer Karen Gregor.

Clare Balding embarks on her first leg of The Dales Way, in the company of Sarah Howcroft. Sarah, an enthusiastic walker and climber for many years, along with her husband founded one of the foremost outdoor clothing companies. The Dales Way is an 82 mile route, starting at Ilkey in Yorkshire. Sarah and Clare walk along the River Wharfe to Bolton Abbey. Producer Lucy Lunt.

Clare Balding has a sparkling day out joining The Diamond Ramblers for a circular walk from the South Devon village of Otterton. The group came together after meeting up at a local slimming club and deciding to accelerate their weight lose by starting walking. Having now been together for just over two years, the eleven have lost more than thirty-six stone between them and despite most of the memb...

Tristan Gooley is the self-styled 'Natural Navigator' who makes his living teaching people how to orient themselves by using clues and signs within the landscape. On today's Ramblings he takes Clare on one of his favourite walks, near Arundel in West Sussex. En route they take their bearings from the most fascinating and unlikely natural sources, and Clare hears where Tristan's passion for the out...

Clare Balding completes one of her very favourite walks in South Devon, Fingle Bridge to Castle Drogo. Today she's in the company of a U3A local walking group, Stride Out.

This series of Ramblings is themed 'waterways' and in the second of two programmes based on the banks of the River Wye, Clare Balding walks with Nadia Smith on the Doward, near Ross-on-Wye. Nadia has a grown-up son with cerebral palsy; when he was younger she needed to lift him a great deal, something she thinks contributed to osteoarthritis, which eventually led to two partial hip-replacements. S...

Today on Ramblings, Clare Balding walks with a group of women who met while on a horse-trekking trip in Outer Mongolia. Firm friendships were formed on that adventure, and since then the group has met many times. For the past five years they've been walking Offa's Dyke bit-by-bit, and they've now reached the section that runs close to Hay on Wye, which is where Ramblings is based this week. The th...

There's a watery theme to this new series of Ramblings, as Clare Balding walks along rivers, lakes and streams. In this first programme we find her exploring part of the Thames estuary in Essex, with local enthusiast, Eileen Peck. Eileen's written a book of local walks around her village of Thundersley trying to encourage locals to enjoy walking in their own area, rather than feeling they have to...

This series is themed 'Ramblings Revisited' as Clare Balding walks again with some of her favourite and most memorable guests. In the spring of 2006, Clare went rambling with a female hockey team who had been walking together for 15 years. In this time they'd developed enduring friendships on as well as off the pitch. Now, eight years on - and with most of the original walkers now retired - Clare...

In this series of Ramblings, Clare Balding revisits some of her favourite walks and walkers. After thirteen years she returns to the Isle of Wight to meet Elizabeth Hutchings who introduced her to the Tennyson Trail. Elizabeth's late husband, Richard, was the founder of the Farringford Tennyson Society, so it was only fitting that he should have a bench, placed in his memory, under the poet's monu...

This series of Ramblings is themed 'Ramblings Revisited' as Clare catches up with people she walked with once before. In 2005 Clare rambled with a group based at the Radbrook Day Service centre in Shrewsbury, for people with mental health difficulties. The group had been running for ten years at the time of the original programme, but in the intervening years the Day Service centre was closed and...

In this series Clare Balding revisits some of her favourite walks and walkers from past programmes. Here she travels to the Hopetoun Estate, just west of Edinburgh to meet up with a group of women she first met twelve years ago. The Monday walkers have been together for over twenty five years, when they first met Clare, their average age was early sixties, now it's mid seventies. They explain that...

This series is themed 'Ramblings Revisited' as Clare Balding walks again with some of her favourite and most memorable guests. In March of 2006 Clare Balding went rambling with Rosie Barrett and her two children, Rachael and Rob. They took her on their local walk around the Avon Estuary in south Devon. It had always been part of their lives, as a route for venting teenage tantrums or simply as a r...

In this new series Clare Balding revisits some of her favourite and most memorable guests. Eleven years ago she joined Tom Isaacs in West Wales as he walked the entire coastline of Britain in an attempt to raise money and awareness for research into a cure for Parkinson's disease. Tom had been diagnosed at the exceptionally young age of twenty-seven but has always been determined not to let his co...

John McCarthy is this week's guest presenter, while Clare is away. The theme of this series of Ramblings is listeners' walks .Today's guests are volunteer rangers on the South Downs Way, Anni Townend and Ian Lock. Anni wrote to the programme to suggest we walk with her on a six mile stretch of the Way from Housedean Farm to Southease. This is her 'patch', which - as a ranger - she walks every mont...

This week's walk is a little unusual. The guest, Cathy Dreyer, wrote to the programme to suggest we join her on a short, local route which she has chosen to walk 365 times. Cathy began her project after reading the first few pages of Robert Macfarlane's book, 'The Old Ways'. She was filled with envy at his freedom to walk in exciting, far flung places. But rather than moan about her domestic respo...

This week's Ramblings is presented by the broadcaster and musician, Dougie Vipond, who took over the map and microphone on a beautiful July day when Clare Balding was away. Dougie joined an amazing young girl, ten year old Annabelle Asher, on a stretch of the Coast to Coast walk from Newbiggin on Lune to Kirkby Stephen. With her parents' support, Annabelle spent the first couple of weeks of her su...