Ordnance Survey GetOutside Champion since 2017
My blog, Always Exploring, aims to help us inspire each other to GetOutside for mini-adventures. They might be swimming across bays, climbing Cornish sea cliffs, kayaking around islands; riding winter waves; sleeping under the stars.
Why? Because although long expeditions are extraordinary, micro explorations and close-to-home adventures can also help us feel alive. Sand dunes can soothe your soul. Horizons can broaden your mind. And adventures can start when possibilities are seen and seized.
So check out my posts, share your stories and prepare to discover that we can all do so much more than we think we can …
Why Go Wild Camping & How?!
What made three Devon women ditch their duvets one chilly February night and sleep out under the stars? And how might you have a go? If a picture tells a thousand words! For me this is the epitome of why I love to GetOutside. It’s about laughing, feeling truly alive and…
Five Reasons to Walk This Winter
Three weeks into the New Year is a tricky time. Still-dark evenings, harsh weather and (perhaps) some resolutions that haven’t quite survived. But those aren’t reasons not to GetOutside and walk. They’re precisely why we should. Set Goals Like cute dogs, resolutions are not just for Christmas (well, New Year). Why confine defining our aspirations…
Three Great GetOutside Resolutions
Amid all the New Year Stops and Dont’s and Giving Ups, how about adding a great big GetOutside YES!! Here are three great GetOutside Resolutions that you’ll delight in keeping: Live. Laugh. Love. Live By which I mean – really feel alive. There’s something about being in the outdoors, encased by sky and ground or…
A GetOutside Year
Clocks and callenders – not only tick time forwards, but also nudge us to review what we’ve done. So as we embark on a year full of potential adventures, I’m considering what 12 months as an Ordnance Survey GetOutside Champion have taught me about the things that matter: people and places, health and happiness, and…
Four Reasons Why The Women’s Climbing Symposium Rocked
As the chalk dust settles on another Women’s Climbing Symposium, here are four ways in which this epic event more than delivered on its aims to connect, develop and inspire. And will actually help us GetOutside. Connect There were fewer women than usual at the UK’s crags last Saturday. That’s because more than 300 of them had…
Why GetOutside Beach Bivvys Make You Smile
Sandhoppers in your sleeping bag, a sloping shore and not getting much sleep. Some think kipping on a beach won’t be a whole heap of fun. But that’d mean missing out on big driftwood fires, a soothing soundtrack of waves and an array of glittering stars. All in all a memorable GetOutside … I’m writing…
Seven Reasons to Learn Map Reading
This summer I was lucky to be one of the leaders on a five-week British Exploring Society expedition to the Canadian Yukon. On that trip we trekked high hills, paddled rivers and camped wild in a remote wilderness. It was challenging, physically, mentally and emotionally. But it also forged the kind of friendships, and made…
Sea Kayaking Cornwall
Have you ever had that thing, when you suddenly discover a whole new way to experience a place? That’s how it was one sunny weekend this June when Erin Bastian rounded up seven people for some boat-based sea kayaking off the south Cornish coast. It was one of this year’s improbably hot spells. For three…
Wild Night Out
There’ll be fewer people in their homes and beds on July 1st. That’s because that Saturday is Wild Night Out. That’s the national outdoors adventure that’s designed to inspire people of all ages and all abilities to do something active in our great outdoors. Why might you like to give it a try? Here are…
River Swim
“Can you be there in 30 minutes?” It’s the kind of message that spells adventures. It was late one weekday afternoon in this recent hot spell. The sun was bright. The sky a brilliant blue. And my desk suddenly seemed very unappealing. Because the mini-adventure being suggested was something I’d never done: swimming – properly…
First Biathlon
In the overall arena of contests and endeavour, the Polkerris Biathlon doesn’t loom large. A 1.5km swim, followed by a 6km run – for some isn’t that far. But for me it was and it underlined five simple truths about why I love to GetOutside. Completing Not Competing “Are you competing?” said the guy pointing people towards…
What’s #YourNature?
When these shoes walked into my life two months ago, they brought more than just a snug, waterproof casing for my feet. Yes, they were Merrell shoes for us Ordnance Survey GetOutside Champions to test. But the Siren Hex Q2s also came with a hashtag: #MyNature. And each time I’ve put them on, they’ve set me…
Adventures By Train
When heading off to GetOutside for a day out or an adventure, what’s your default mode of transport? If you’re going camping or even climbing, how would you get there – hop on a bus or walk? Perhaps, although most will load up the car. But could you get to your destination by train? Camping,…
First Solo Bivvy
Sunday 7th May 2017 Bivvy Night It’s 10.10 at night and I’m sitting on the beach in the dark on my own. I’m propped against a rock, my sleeping bag and roll mat are stretched out in front. A driftwood fire is warming my legs, occasionally the smoke swirls into my eyes. So what does…
Why Wild Camping Makes Us Smile
Loads of us love a night under canvas. But might it be even better if you head not for a campsite, but for the hills or moors? Camping is fabulous – the fresh air, the sense of escape. But sometimes getting away from it all also means you’re getting very close to other people. The…
Celebrate Sunrise
The sun rises every day, but does that mean we should take it for granted? And can a burst of the pink-tinged great outdoors really brighten your whole day? I headed off to the shores of Plymouth Sound, to swim at sunrise and try to find out. Gloves on, hood up, flask of espresso in…
Scottish Winter Hill Walking
It was a challenging, exhilarating three days in the snows of the Scottish Cairngorms. There was leg-testing, wind-blasting and snot-streaming (sorry, but it’s true). But it was an unforgettable place to GetOutside. This, my first experience of the Scottish winter hills, led to an article for the British Mountaineering Council. It covers the safety issues,…
Riding the Rails: Plymouth to Edinburgh
Tempted by the idea of a classic foreign train ride? What about those trips closer to home … Why ride the UK rails? Perhaps it’s because so many of us commute by rail. Or perhaps it’s because British train trips don’t somehow feel exotic – whatever the reason, you might not take a long UK…
Why GetOutside?
A flock of blue jackets flits through the New Forest’s tawny woods. Strolling beside tall trees, squelching through mud, studdying maps – the Ordnance Survey 2017 GetOutside Champions are out on a walk We’re here because OS has gathered staff and champions to share tips and stats, information and inspiration. A kind of glorious GetOutside…
A Coast Path Night Run
It’s amazing how much of a view you can see in the dark. And just what brilliantly bonkers fun running at night can be. Half way around, the view from the headland revealed a bright moon traced by mackerel clouds, sketchily-shaped hills, and village lights reflected in the creek. And getting there had been ridiculously…
Swimming In Hope
The first day of 2017 saw dozens of wild-swimmers take to the sea in South Devon. That we met at a beach called Inner Hope seemed pretty fitting – because you could describe this brilliant bunch of people a little like this … Beach-gatherers, Excited-chatterers Happy-faffers*, Quick-changers Chill-seekers, Shallows-shriekers Wave-riders, Gleeful-whoopers Fast-towelers, Speedy-dressers Mug-clutchers, Hot waterbottle-huggers Cake-sharers, Fire-huddlers Friendship-forgers, Hope-affirmers Spirit-lifters, Grin-gifters Days-seizers, Life-livers…
Welcoming Winter
In the end, the winter solstice weather was better than expected, so it was in only persistent drizzle that we set off onto a soggy moor. Highly efficient navigation (not mine) led us, via Scorhill Circle, to a rushing stream and the Tolmen Stone. This massive boulder has a person-sized hole in the middle –…
Gleeful Mini-Adventures
I stood, in just swimsuit and wetsuit boots, ankle deep in numbing water on the edge of a natural waterfall pool. And I wondered just how exactly I’d got to this point? It was a Tuesday, early in December and I was playing hooky – turning off the computer and heading up onto a misty…
Sneaking in Autumnal Sun …
After walloping us with heavy rain and treacherous winds, this week nature snuck in some sun. In the Channel Island of Guernsey a string of dazzling autumnal afternoons felt more like spring. This warm, unexpected sunshine somehow felt stolen. Ideal days to run on beaches, scramble over rocks, plot future adventures and remember past swims ……
Autumnal Adventures
It used to be I hated the end of September – summer’s lease has all too short a date. It meant less outside fun. Bad weather and shorter days. But this year I resolved to turn all that on its head. To find new outdoor opportunities as the temperatures dropped and the nights drew in.…
Super-moon Sea Swim
How’s this for an outdoors equation: the more apparently random and bizarre – the more joyful.
Sea Cliff Climbing
“Only birds and climbers can be here,” says one of our party as he looks around. “Just climbers and birds.” He’s right. Rock ledges plummet. Cliff faces soar. Birds wheel. An azure sea glints. And always, below, the surge of the waves. It’s a coast somehow filtered in intensity, as if in super slow-mo. There’s…
Learning / Remembering to Ride
Words: Belinda Dixon; Images: Malcolm Snelgrove Imagine – it’s the kind of day Dartmoor does so well: colour-vivid; sunglasses-bright. Gorse a vibrant yellow against a brilliant blue sky. And you’re in the kind of place Dartmoor does so well: away from roads, with a wilderness feel, resounding to only-natural sounds: a soft whinny, the clip…
Belinda Dixon 