What’s new in 2020
2020 will mark 75 years since VE Day, 125 years of the National Trust and 85 years since the board game Monopoly was first launched! It’s also a year in which Large Outdoors launches a string of new trips.
So with all that in mind we’re (informally) designating next year the one where we celebrate the freedom of our shores, stay in National Trust accommodation and invent a new version of the board game based on the idyllic locations we end up in (ok that might not happen but quite honestly why go to Mayfair when you can go to Chatsworth!).
Celebrating our shores
If you join us on our three-night break to the Isle of Wight, you can look out from our accommodation across to Totland Bay and raise a toast to all those who helped protect our precious shoreline during World War 2. If you like a bit of wartime history then one of our guided walks also follows the Warrior Trail, so-called as it celebrates the Isle of Wight’s most prominent First World War story, that of General Jack Seely and his horse Warrior.
View our Isle of Wight trip here…
Alternatively join our new members’ sociable walking weekend in Surrey in February and celebrate the fact that we have so much beautiful, peaceful countryside, great pubs and some of the best tearooms just a short train ride out of London.
Cheers National Trust
What better way to applaud the National Trust than to stay in some of their accommodation in idyllic spots.
The Tower Windmill bunkhouse at Burnham Overy Staithe.
Come on our new weekend in Norfolk and stay in a windmill which stands on its own slap bang on the Norfolk Coastal Path. It has expansive views across the saltmarshes, particularly from the balcony and the lounge on the third floor and is a great base for walks from Blakeney and Holkham.
Bransdale Mill in the North York Moors
Newly refurbished, this bunkhouse is in one of the most peaceful settings within the National Park. Join us on our hiking weekend in May and you’ll relish the tranquillity of it all.
Reinventing Monopoly
If we had the time, the inclination and enough gin, we might just put our minds to this one but in the meantime here’s a sprinkling of our new trips where the locations deserve their own Monopoly board:
Chatsworth - For the magnificence of Chatsworth House, the Capability Brown designed gardens and the chocolate box villages surrounding the estate in this Derbyshire beauty.
Castleton - Hiking the Peak District, another Peak District beauty with Castleton acting as a hub with its tearooms and pubs providing enough of an incentive to complete one of the many walks that radiate out from the village.
The Lakes District - If you swapped sheep for the houses in Monopoly and then had the Lake District beauty spots on the board, then it might mirror some of the places we’re going to be visiting on next spring’s walking weekend. From the splendour of the Langdale Fells through to the jaw dropping beauty of Coniston Water, we’d need a bigger board to accommodate them all.