Nature
Since childhood—and as one who spent their early formative years being raised in the country—nature has seduced and delighted me. In my youth, there was no greater pull, upon reaching a field, woodland or river, than to take off my shoes and socks and connect to the land; to feel it intimately and draw up whatever power, real or imagined, it might have. I would spend hours simply staring at a tree, climbing and investigating it and its inhabitants: birds, insects, animals and the often overlooked, but ever present, lichen. Wildflowers and animals fascinated me, rivers and streams provided endless pleasure. Even inanimate objects, often overlooked, such as rocks, would, on close examination, be found to be alive in one way or another. And these things still provide the deepest of pleasure. Why, I could not tell you, although I know I am far from alone; millions of people seem to share the same love and wonder of nature, at least to some degree.
Poets, artists and philosophers have vouched and prescribed a regular engagement with nature as the most effective of tonics for centuries. An early example is Aristotle, who advocated walking outdoors to clear the mind. Or, let us look to Beethoven, who, writing to Therese Malfatti in the summer of 1808—as he completed the 6th Symphony—revealed:
"How happy I am to be able to walk among the shrubs, the trees, the woods, the grass and the rocks! For the woods, the trees and the rocks give man the resonance he needs."
But we should not assume that the benefits of being in nature are only the poetic imaginings of the artist. Biologists, physiologists and neuroscientists advise us that there is a multitude of biological and physiological reasons that induce us to react with pleasure to being outdoors. It seems that changes occur in the complex biochemistry of the body—especially the brain—when we connect with nature for only a brief period. An entire pharmacy of biochemicals is released upon even the most fleeting encounter with nature that makes us feel good, revitalised, alive. The cheapest, most natural and safest high in the world. A high not only safe but one that is good for us. Even more surprisingly, it seems to have an effect on our cognitive function, allowing us to think with greater clarity, to cope better with our problems, to relieve stress, and to alleviate depression. And it’s not just our brains that benefit; long-term studies have found that spending time with nature improves our health and helps encourage our body to heal after operations and to recover from illness. And this is not just an intuitive feeling—although I think we all feel this at some level—it is supported by the most recent of cutting-edge science.
But let us not get lost in an alchemist's crucible of biochemistry and hormones; tales of neurons and brainwaves, as interesting as they are. Whatever takes place, it is the outcome that is important: we enjoy being outdoors in the heart of nature and it's good for us.
To discover the undiscovered
It is often said that there is no place left on earth to discover. But this is simply untrue. Let us ignore the 70 percent of the earth's oceans that remain unexplored and remind ourselves that there are vast areas of the land that also remain unknown—at least to most of us. Take Vale do Javari, Brazil, an area larger than Austria. While home to around 2,000 indigenous people, it remains otherwise unexplored by the billions of humans upon the planet; deliberately so, as it is protected by the Brazilian government from outside intrusion. Or the Siberian Sakha Republic, part of Russia. It is the size of India and yet, due to its inhospitable climate—minus 46°C in winter—it remains unexplored. And these are just examples.
But even if these did not exist, it’s the local undiscovered areas that lie just beyond our doorstep that interest me the most. Those places known only to a handful of locals or the curious historian, if at all. Shortly, I will describe a visit first to the remains of a 5,000-year-old stone-age burial cairn that was the subject of the most calamitous vandalism seen in the last two centuries. From there, we will travel just a few miles of a pleasant cycle to a site once known as the "Geneva of England"—Rudyard Lake—now the occasional visiting place to only a relatively small local population, even if it still deserves wider renown. After all, this is a place once famous and loved enough to inspire a certain Mr and Mrs Kipling to name their firstborn Rudyard.
But even without these, travel only a small distance outside of any city, leave the main routes and we will quickly find places with no names, unmarked on maps. Certain tracks that might be thousands of years old; perhaps the persistent rights of passage and pilgrimage of the pre-Celtic people of Britain, and then their descendants: first the Celts and then Christians. These and the places they may lead can, if we are lucky, radiate with a breathless beauty that might stay with us our entire lives. Moments of wonder that bring us close to what Zen calls KenshÅ—a brief, if transitory insight into the nature of reality and the interconnectedness between nature and observer. It’s those times when we seem to have insight into our true nature and our interconnectedness with the land itself.
Cycling
I am about three or four years old and I am flying through the air. It’s warm, but not uncomfortably so. The sun is shining and I feel its heat upon my face. It is accompanied, and made more pleasant, by a swift breeze being emphasised by the exhilarating, but agreeable, speed at which I am moving. I am deep in the countryside and its natural smells and sounds are all around me. Although, as I have no memory of anything but the countryside at this time, I don’t recall labelling it as such. There is yet no experience of the city, town or urban for me to need to label the countryside anything but outside. I am on the back of my grandfather’s bicycle, as I often was then, his unique smell of pipe tobacco and the once popular Old Woodbine cigarettes (very strong, unfiltered and now long out of favour) mixing in a way that had become familiar with the natural smells of the countryside. These journeys took place every day and have left a deep association between cycling and the countryside.
Move forward a short time and my grandfather is opening an old, sealed money box in the form of a replica bright red British post box. It's completely sealed and can only be opened with the tin opener I have excitedly asked him to use. His work done, coins of various denominations fall onto the made bed in my bedroom. I look at the now useless money box with a little sadness, but this is happily countered by the money on the bed and what I hope it will buy. "Is there enough?"
Forward a few more weeks and another random memory. It has arrived. There was enough money, it seemed—although one suspects added to with no little additional coinage from ardently badgered parents and grandparents. I am ushered outside and there is a red and yellow bicycle, with accompanying stabiliser wheels. I spend all day on it, and the next and the next. After a week or two, I persuade my grandfather to teach me to ride it with the stabilisers removed. A notable, and painful, few falls and scrapes later and I have mastered it, at least enough to stay upright in a wobbly fashion. I would work on it.
Many bikes have come and gone since then: they grew bigger, gears were added, gears were removed, steel changed to aluminium, aluminium to carbon. In time, styles and names would change too: from a straightforward bicycle, in the traditional style, to chopper, to racer, mountain bike, road bike, tourer, to cyclocross—the latter being my mainstay nowadays. However, these changes have been ones of practicality and sometimes fashion. At their core, each bike has had the same purpose: to take me out into the country and provide its own joy.
A bike needs no fuel except that already available in its rider. It can travel places not possible in a car or even motorbike: along ancient country paths, bridleways and lanes, across and through nature reserves, along canal pathways and sometimes river banks. And when the terrain is too poor to allow you to cycle, simply get off and walk with it. It will happily carry a day or more’s worth of provisions and camping equipment. All this without complaint, like the most loyal and trusted of steeds. Is it no wonder cyclists so often give names to their bikes and can even sense their individual personalities? What's not to like?
But there is more. Like being in nature, cycling, like any form of exercise, releases further biochemicals that make us feel better and happier: serotonin, dopamine and phenylethylamine. Further, cycling causes growth hormones to be released that increase the supply of blood and oxygen to the brain. Combine this with the physiological response of the body to being in nature and you have a powerful mix. If we ignore any poetic notions—which I have to admit I am loath to do—of any spiritual gains of being in the wild, when we add the scientific evidence of why nature is good for us to the same sort of hard evidence for cycling, then perhaps my need and love of combining the two becomes more readily understandable.
In these pages, I will share just a few of those journeys that I take every week. To places of unimaginable beauty and historical interest. Places that put us at the very core of what it is and has been to be British and give us an idea of the diversity inherent in that term. Journeys that will describe the wonder that still remains in our geography, wildlife and fauna, and in the remains of our ancient historical heritage—despite what seems a concerted effort by commerce and industry, and sometimes just our own ignorance and fear, to destroy them. I would hope that by doing so, I might encourage the interested reader to do the same if only once or twice a year, for I believe these experiences are available to anyone and just a short distance from your doorstep. In an attempt to support this aim, I will limit each journey described herein to no more than 70 miles from my own front doorstep and many will be 20 miles or less—a leisurely day's cycle for even the least experienced cyclists. And should you think I might in some way be "cheating" by living in the countryside, for many years now I have lived a significant part of my time close to the centre of that once thriving set of five industrial towns known collectively as the City of Stoke-on-Trent. If such journeys are available to me here, in what was once an industrial heartland, home of the "Potteries", a centre of coal mining and steel production, I believe they will be available to you too, wherever you might be.
