Sunday 20 April 2008

Unforgettable Walks To Take Before You Die - BBC Books



Publisher: BBC Books ISBN: 0563539089 Format: Paperback XL
Number of Pages: 256 Price: £18.99

Books such as this are a depressing reminder that there's a wide world on the outside whilst you're toiling away inside. And worse still, that you'll do your life a gross disservice if you never see the world, do it, taste it, walk it before the inevitable happens ... you die.

As a welcome tonic for frustrated souls infected with wanderlust but isolated at the office for all but four or five weeks of the year, the latest in the Unforgettable family features thirty walks that can be achieved in under two weeks. By tailoring the content to the needs of today's time-poor travellers, the book's editors and co- photographers Steve Watkins and Clare Jones, have made the Unforgettable, unmissable: epic travel has been reclaimed from the galloping sands of time.

Speaking recently about the book at Stanfords (the travel book shop, Covent Garden) Steve and Clare picked just four Unforgettable Walks to showcase the diversity and geographical reach of the book's thirty recommendations.

Highlights of the four walks that were shared with the audience were:

Darjeeling Tea Trek, India Tea house accommodation, tea in bed, tea at lunchtime, tea with dinner; sunrise illuminating Mt Everest at the start of another day's walk

The Drover's Roads, Spain
carpets of wildflowers; siestas; drovers milking their sheep

Mali Sleeping under a mosquito net beneath the moon and so many stars that the sky is more white than black; the colourful, authentic dances of the Dogon tribesmen

Loftoten Islands, Norway
Midnight sun, walking unaware of time for 25 hours; the salt cod industry; eating just cod or salmon burgers; so few walkers that the sheep look surprised to see you

Perhaps I'll try to take one of the book's epic walks every year for the next thirty; the most challenging ones first, the more easy going on the joints in my retirement years!

Unforgettable Walks to take before you die is the fifth title in the BBC's Unforgettable series. The four other being;
Unforgettable Things to Do ...
Unforgettable Places to See ...
Unforgettable Journeys to Take ...
Unforgettable Islands to Escape to .... Read more!