I’ve walked holloways in England and Europe two metres below the surface of the surrounding fields – they have been used for millennia when walking was the only way to get anywhere – my ancestors wouldn’t have wasted their time on a roundabout way. There’s also the psychological safety of knowing this must be the quickest and easiest way to get wherever because so many other people have walked it before us. Someone has stepped here before so we know it’s stable ground, no holes to break our ankles, not too near a hidden drop. There’s the reassurance of physical safety of course. ‘A clear path becomes a visual demonstration that you are indeed going the right way.’ A disused tramway on Box Vale walking track near Mittagong, Australia. What makes me – most of us – feel impelled to walk along it whenever we see a path, even a photograph of one? In those days it was a longing for adventure, the possibility that something could happen or be discovered that I didn’t already know about in this wide, open landscape, but the attraction of paths has lasted and is multistranded. As a child I longed to find a proper path – narrow, winding, destination hidden – but there were only broad, flat paddocks with an occasional aimless sheep-trail meandering with impenetrable sheep-logic across the landscape – no chance of hidden pathways. I set off up the path as the sheep scattered. There was an immediate thrill of connection I was walking in their brave footsteps. On the other side a small noticeboard indicated this was the path used by partisans to guide refugees across the Pyrénées in the second world war. To one side sheep milled nervously, trying to decide what to do about me. A narrow path wound up the mountain, disappearing from view as it entered the Pyrénéen oak forest.
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