The build-up to the spring launch of the Wales Coastal Path has now begun, with a record-breaking walk, special training and a new smartphone app all planned to celebrate the first complete national coast-perimeter walk in the world.

The Big Welsh Coastal Walk, organised by Ramblers Cymru, will be the major nationwide event for the path’s opening on 5 May, and, so far, around 12 Ramblers groups along the coast have signed up to lead a series of walks. National health referral schemes and more than 20 charities are also keen to be involved with walks on the day, including Diabetes UK, Wildlife Trusts and an osteoporosis charity. And there are also plans to break the world record for the largest mass walk, with the help of hundreds of Scouts and Girl Guides groups.

To meet the extraordinary demand, Ramblers Cymru has teamed up with Plas y Brenin National Mountain Centre to offer coastal-walks-leader training to all those who need it. While a new smartphone app, due for release in January, will help people increase their daily walking and get in shape for the celebrations on the big day.

“Ramblers Cymru is pleased to be taking the lead on what is going to be the walking event of the year,” says Angela Charlton, director of Ramblers Cymru. “We are inviting everyone to join us and thousands of others on our 870-mile coast path walk with the best sea view in the world.”

England and Scotland will support the Welsh celebrations with their own ‘Coast for Most’ walks, urging support for better coastal access across Britain.

To find out more about all these events, visit www.ramblers.org.uk/wales

Burnley and Pendle Ramblers is also celebrating after its founder received the Lifetime Achievement Award in the local mayor’s community awards scheme. Sylvia Franks joined the Ramblers in 1954 and helped set up the Pennine Way with Tom Stephenson.

And there was an OBE for former head of Ramblers Cymru, Beverley Penney, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to the charity over 27 years.

“There is enormous potential for communities to reap the economic benefit of sustainable tourism if the community engages with its stretch of coast and provides visitors with additional walking opportunities to encourage them to stay,” says the report’s author, Andrew Morgan.

•The All Wales coast path is nearly a reality and will be formally opened next year in 2012. The coastal path will create a round Wales walk joining with the Offa’s Dyke National Trail.

•Walking Festivals happen in all corners of Wales and bring vital tourism income – walking has been calculated to contribute £548 million to the Welsh economy.

•Ramblers Cymru worked hard to secure the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (CRoW) 2000 which has been of enormous significance in confirming a right to walk in the mountains and wilder land of Wales, always with care for the land.

Commenting on the award, Tom Franklin, Ramblers Chief Executive says that “Beverley worked for Ramblers Cymru for 27 years, a time when walking for pleasure changed from being an niche activity to a mainstream pastime enjoyed by millions who clearly love walking in Wales. At a Wales level Beverley has championed walking and access opportunities for everyone and to anyone who wanted to hear!”

Echoing Tom’s words, Denis McAteer, the new Chairman of Ramblers Cymru, says “I have worked with Beverley over the years in many different capacities and she engaged enthusiastically with a wide range of partners to ensure that the Ramblers message was heard far and wide. Her work was much appreciated by the membership.”

Ramblers Cymru has played a vital part in making Wales even more walker friendly; continually campaigning for the rights of walkers and to bring the benefits of walking to a greater number of people. Projects to encourage walking such as rail rambles, Walk and and Talk/Lonc a Chlonc and more recently e-trails have engaged with a variety of different people and communities.

Celebratory walks in Wales have brought Ramblers Cymru to all parts of Wales – in 1985 hundreds of walkers hiked from Conwy to Cardiff for the association’s 50th and in 2010 thousands of walkers took place in “baton walks” passing a 75th anniversary baton around the country to celebrate the Ramblers big birthday.

“I was so glad to be a part of this growing movement developing walking for the benefit of Wales and honoured that fellow Ramblers put my contribution forward for this award,” says Beverley. “I want to pay tribute to the volunteers and colleagues who have worked so hard and well to secure these benefits.”

Like them or loathe them, mobile phones are taking their place beside a map and compass as essential rucksack items. Until now it’s been about personal safety and making calls, but for a new generation of walkers, mobiles are becoming a source of information – even when out walking. And a groundbreaking project by Ramblers Cymru is showing how this new technology is set to change people’s approach to walking in the future.

“A mobile is no longer just a phone, ” says Rob Hanna, Ramblers Cymru’s senior development and promotion officer. “Think of it as a portable computer serving up data. ” Rob and his colleagues at Ramblers Cymru are behind a project called Activate, which is developing a software application that will make masses of information available via the phone in your hand. In simple terms, if you have the latest type of mobile phone – a so-called ‘smartphone’ with high-speed internet access, such as an iPhone – you will be able to bring up not just text and images but also video and audio information about a location. You can even use it to follow a specific walking route, or what’s being called an eTrail.

“An eTrail is like a virtual guidebook on your mobile phone, ” explains Rob. “It’s not meant to replace a printed map or guidebook, but it will be better than a simple leaflet. We’re aiming it at individuals and very small groups where the information can be easily used and shared. ”

Ramblers Cymru has identified around 130 different organisations across Wales that put on guided or led walks, including local authorities, national parks and charities such as the RSPB. The idea behind the Activate ‘app’ (short for application) is that for the first time all this information will be brought together in one place – specific to your location and downloadable to your phone – doing away with the arduous task of trawling through numerous websites or visiting libraries and information centres. So, if you’re walking in the Black Mountains or the Cardiff area, you will be able to find out who is leading what walk and where at the click of a button, in both English and Welsh.

The process of collating all this data is likely to reveal some interesting results in terms of the prevalence of walking information in Wales and where the gaps are. But it will also provide the opportunity to prise out information from many varied and interesting places, so much so Rob enthusiastically describes it as “the mass trespass of the virtual environment! ”

In the long run, Activate meets the need for sustainability, too. Not only will it be a paper-free resource, but it aims to be financially self-supporting. Maintenance costs will be light and mostly met by the price of the app, plus a small fee that other organisations will be invited to pay to upload their information and establish web links. The project has received the support of the Welsh Assembly, and was launched at the Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale in August. A wide range of partners is involved, including Visit Wales, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, and the National Museum of Wales. But its success also reflects the young and innovative team at Ramblers Cymru, typified by 23-year-old Activate researcher Sammy Milston. “Lots of people are into this sort of technology, particularly from my own age group, ” she says. “It’s reckoned that there will be more than 40 million smartphones in use in the UK by 2012, and without doubt it’s one way for us to communicate with and incentivise a younger audience. It’s important for the future of the Ramblers. ”

New technology, new audiences
Smartphones will soon make up the lion’s share of mobile phones in Britain and they’re already popular with travellers and outdoor enthusiasts, not least because they have a built-in global positioning system (GPS) facility, allowing you to pinpoint your exact location. And since you can combine this with an app offering detailed Ordnance Survey mapping, it’s easy to see why a mobile is indispensable for a growing number of people. Even patchy mobile coverage in rural areas is not a barrier for an app like Activate – you simply download it before you set off or go out of range and then bring it up on screen when necessary.

Sammy and her colleagues are convinced that this new technology will be at the heart of walking in the future, where a podcast (a downloadable audio program) on a mobile phone will be as familiar as the page of a printed guidebook. But they also see it as an important part of the solution in tackling growing inactivity and obesity levels in Wales, since one of the project’s aims is to get 10% more people walking within four years.

An eTrail network
If all this talk of apps and smartphones is a little bewildering, it’s worth bearing in mind that it’s essentially just communicating the same message, but in a more modern way to reach new audiences. Getting people out walking is still the core aim, and community and heritage are at the heart of each walk developed as an eTrail. Llantwit Major in South Wales provided the pilot eTrail, after Ramblers Cymru teamed up with the town council, Local History Society, and Rights of Way and Heritage Coast officers to develop a series of short local routes. For the most part these have been modelled on existing trails for which leaflets are now out of date or unavailable. They include a Blue Plaque town trail looking at historic buildings, wildlife walks along the Heritage Coast, and a poetry trail in St Illtyd.

When complete, the Llantwit Major eTrails won’t just include maps and advice on where to go; there will be, for instance, audio sections where you can listen to local historians talking about a heritage attraction you’re standing in front of. In many ways it moves the walking guidebook into a whole new dimension. “By establishing a series of local eTrails, a process has been developed that directly involves the community, ” explains Rob Hanna. “Our facilitator works closely with local people so that they learn the necessary skills to explore themes such as nature, history and culture, through local walking routes. At the same time, the Ramblers raises its profile and perhaps gets some new members, while leaving a worthwhile legacy for the local community. ”

Eddie Williams, a Llantwit Major town councillor, says that overall it’s been a worthwhile experience. “The project has brought together many different local groups and organisations,” he says, “and hopefully we can continue to build on these links with future eTrails. ” Indeed, minds are already turning to how eTrails can be rolled out in other communities, and how the knowledge and expertise within local Ramblers groups can be used to further the project. With a process or ‘toolkit’ taking shape, local Ramblers can be trained to develop eTrails with new communities.

It seems ironic that despite being a ‘virtual’ project, eTrails is destined to make such a lasting contribution to enhancing local heritage – not least because it will form part of a national initiative called the People’s Collection Wales. Funded by the Welsh Assembly, the vast archive aims to preserve and promote Wales’s cultural heritage by gathering digital content from a wide range of places – not just museums and libraries, but local groups, individuals and community-led projects like eTrails, too. Eventually you’ll be able to search online for any aspect of Welsh life in the form of documents, photographs and films, with the chance to view virtual artefacts in 3D and even explore animated, reconstructions of historical sites. It’s cutting edge stuff, and pioneering projects such as the Ramblers’ eTrails are showing how new technology can deliver stunning interactive content at the click of a button. Forget the term ‘next generation phones’ – this is next generation walking.

Going Mobile: Walking apps and sites for your smartphone

Apps
RouteBuddy – www.routebuddy.com
Turns your iPhone into a handheld GPS unit with detailed Ordnance Survey mapping available, including all 15 national parks.
Peaks – http://peaks.augmented-outdoors.com
Point your phone’s camera at any one of more than 500,000 hills worldwide and this app will tell you its name, location and altitude.
Midge Forecast – http://2010.midgeforecast.co.uk
A Scottish-based national midge forecast that warns you where the beasties are biting.
www.GPSmyCity.com
One of many self-guided walking apps with maps and route description for cities worldwide.
Activate – due late-2010.

Podcasts
Peak District – www.moorsforthefuture.org.uk/mftf/audiotrails.htm
The Peak District‘s award-winning audio guide, including maps, images and GPS co-ordinates.

Wainwright – www.golakes.co.uk/downloads/podcasts/wainwright.aspx
Listen to Alfred Wainwright guiding you around Helm Crag, Grasmere.

Ramblers

Twitter – follow the Ramblers (twitter.com/RamblersGB), its campaigns (twitter.com/HeartofWalking), or this magazine (twitter.com/walkmagazine) for brief updates on the world of walking.
Facebook – meet and discuss walking with others at the Ramblers’ (tinyurl.com/ramblersfb) and walk magazine’s (tinyurl.com/walkfb) Facebook pages.
E-newsletters – www.ramblers.org. uk/newsletter Subscribe, manage and receive e-newsletters from the Ramblers on walk magazine, volunteering and Get Walking Keep Walking.
Group walks finder – www.ramblers. co.uk/map Search thousands of Ramblers-led walks using the improved search facility, with OS mapping.

Where did you get your love of walking?
I’ve always loved walking. I was brought up in America and Zimbabwe [Jane’s parents were doctors], but we used to come to the UK once a year and stay in a family cottage in Wensleydale. We’d walk miles and I was regularly walking bits of the Pennine Way before it was designated. I hadn’t heard of the Ramblers then but I was a keen youth hosteller all through my childhood and walked the Pembrokeshire Coast Path when I was 16. I do most of my walking in Wales now but the Yorkshire Dales is still one of my absolutely favourite places to walk.

You’ve worked closely with Ramblers Cymru for years – how did that relationship begin?
Back in 1983, I started working for the Youth Hostel Association in Wales [as a development officer] and did an event with Ramblers Cymru, teaching people to make stiles and repair walls. Our organisations continued working together for years afterwards and later, in 1999, I was invited to become a vice president of Ramblers Cymru [Davidson stepped down in 2007 after being made Minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Housing].

What achievements were you most proud of during your vice presidency?
I was very conscious of influencing what my own party was doing about walking and was absolutely delighted that we put the idea of a round-Wales path into our Labour manifesto for 2007. I’ve also been able to strongly advocate walking in communities where it’s not a traditional pastime. Probably my proudest achievement was working with the Ramblers in our Communities First areas [identified as Wales’ most deprived] and taking a walk in Tonyrefail in my constituency. It was pouring with rain and more than 20 local people turned up in completely unsuitable clothes and shoes. But we had a great evening, and there were at least three or four who told me they’d never been up the hill which had been behind them all their lives. To get so many walking on a horribly wet day in an area where people do not traditionally walk was fantastic.

The all-Wales coast path is much more advanced than England’s counterpart – what lessons can England learn from Wales’ experiences so far?
We learnt a lot from the Pembrokeshire Coast Path when it was set up in 1970: that it’s possible to mix walkers and livestock; and that villages in Pembrokeshire, which otherwise only saw money coming in during the height of the summer, now see income throughout the year as a result of the coast path. Since then, the Ramblers’ own research has demonstrated that walking brings something like £68 million annually into the Welsh economy. So when we opened the latest big stretch of path along the Ceredigion Coast two years ago, many of the landowners we negotiated with already understood that it would produce a really positive outcome. There’s always some resistance but we haven’t needed to take any statutory intervention yet using the powers outlined in the Marine and Coastal Access Act.
Will the path be ready in time for the 2012 Olympics as planned? We’re pretty well on track at the moment. A number of new sections have opened over the summer – including a 47km/27-mile stretch from Gronant dunes, near Prestatyn, to Llandudno – and we’ve developed a ‘dragon shell’ brand to waymark the route.

How seriously are budget cuts likely to impact on footpaths in Wales?
I’m very, very worried about it. The Welsh government has actively prioritised footpaths, putting £5 million into ROWIPs [local authorities’ rights of way improvement plans] and another £2 million dedicated to coastal improvement over the last three years. In all, over 7,644km/4,750 miles of public rights of way have been improved with assembly government funding in the last two years, so a lot of this is at risk. I’ll still be lobbying very hard for funding to ensure that we can keep paths open, but we’re also very keen to create or improve multi-user routes. I’m confident the funding will remain for the coastal path since it’s a major manifesto commitment and requires another year of funding to take it forward. But I can’t be confident about the level of funds [for other routes] because the cuts from the UK government are happening faster and deeper than we would be advocating.

Is walking taken seriously by the Welsh Assembly as a means of tackling obesity and health-related problems in Wales?
Oh, tremendously. Wales’ government is the only one in the UK – and one of three in the world – which actually has a legal duty to consider sustainable development in everything it does. I have the responsibilities for sustainability and climate change for the whole Assembly, so I have conversations with the health minister about walking for health and the economic minister (who is also the transport minister) about making sure we have the appropriate community footpaths allied to road schemes. He and I jointly chair a walking and cycling steering group, too, and set up a cycling and walking action plan because I was concerned that we weren’t meeting a couple of our big sustainable development indicators. The latest figures from 2009 show the number of trips made by private motor vehicles increased by 7% and those by walking and cycling decreased by 7% over the same period. We have people coming to Wales from all over the UK because it’s such a fantastic location to walk and cycle, yet our own population is doing it less. You worked as a teacher, then as a youth and community worker. Is it important for the Ramblers to engage with youth? It’s absolutely critical and I don’t think the Ramblers has cracked it yet. There’s a Sustrans project called Bike It which places an officer in schools to encourage young people to cycle. It’s immensely successful. The Ramblers should look to do something similar for walking to reach the next generation.

What do you think of Ramblers Cymru’s new eTrails project?
It’s very exciting. We’ve got to use all the mechanisms at our disposal to encourage people to take up walking, and eTrails is a great way of engaging people through new technology. But I still think people need to know how to read a map and should understand you don’t need any special gear to go walking.

The Ramblers is 75 this year – any advice for its continued success?
As well as its traditional work, I think the Ramblers has a major role in advising and helping people understand the benefits of walking. And if it could make the next 25 years about building a youth walking movement, that would be a fantastic legacy.

What’s your favourite…

…city walk?
The Taff Trail from the valleys into the heart of Cardiff. It’s the city’s green lung, where you can see kingfishers and fish. It’s the model walk: flat, disabled-friendly and connected to rail links.

…countryside walk?
It’s a tie between the Pembrokeshire Coast Path – my first major walk – or Great Shunner Fell on the Pennine Way.

…piece of walking kit?
It would have to be my boots – I alternate between my light leather Brasher ones and modern Berghaus.

…view?
From the top of the Garth Mountain, where I live, looking north to Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons and south over Cardiff to Somerset across the River Severn.

…post-walk tipple?
Has to be a good pint of locally brewed beer, like Otley’s ale from Pontypridd.

Photography: Martin Cavaney

Ramblers Cymru is taking walking into the 21^st century with a pioneering project to provide online walking routes to encourage more young people to take up the healthy activity. Called e-trails, the digital routes can be downloaded on to any GPS-enabled mobile phone or laptop, and feature
audio and video clips with historical and cultural highlights.

Developed in partnership with Google, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA, and Glasgow University, the first e-trail from St David’s to Newgale in the Pembrokeshire National Park was trialled last month (see the Routemaster on p49), which included podcasts from a national park ranger and the Bishop of St Davids Cathedral. Eventually, the route will be viewable online using Google Earth, and there are plans to explore liaisons with MySpace.

Robert Hanna, Ramblers Cymru’s project leader for web development initiatives, says: “The internet and other mobile technologies are a huge opportunity for the Ramblers to serve up its vast quantity of data concerning the walking environment to a new and IT-savvy audience. Look out for news of more developments soon.”