Happy 2009

It's been over 6 months since our last blog, but there again, no one has asked us where it has been, so we can assume that not too many people have missed us...which is a shame.

For those of you who don't know yet, Knobbly Stick is undergoing quite a radical shake up in 2009. Firstly, we are not offering the kind of whole year calendar of guided walking holidays which have been our standard "product" since 2002; instead we are offering mainly a self guided service on various routes in the English Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, including "tailor made" holidays if anyone would like one. Those of you who have seen them know that we take a good deal of care on the preparation of our self guided walk notes, and we hope to see plenty of people striding out with their Knobbly Stick notes, confident in the knowledge that they have been written by walkers (i.e. us) for walkers (i.e. them.)

This doesn't mean that we have entirely retreated into our shells, however. We will offer a guided service to anyone who wants us to show a pre-formed group around our "patch" - assuming we are available, of course, and we already have a couple of groups lining up for this in the summer, which is very gratifying.

The other innovation is the formation of a sort of twin operation to Knobbly Stick, called Routes Less Travelled. These are holidays in the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, northern France/ Belgium, the Loire Valley and County Mayo in western Ireland. They will be combined walking and sight seeing tours, with an emphasis on looking out for the historical, cultural and seldom seen, with some fairly light walking - usually half days. We hope that these will appeal to those who want to gain an insight into where they are going - local products, traditions, anecdotes and generally going a bit below the surface as experienced by the tourist either, at one extreme, in a large party, or at the other, just in a small family group or couple (or even by him/ herself.) Once again, we won't be expecting large parties, and the aim will be to have groups who enjoy each others' company, want to find out a bit about where they are visiting and who want a modicum of healthy exercise.

If you want to find out more about any of these holidays, the new brochure has just appeared in its printed form, and will shortly be posted on our website - we'll let you know when it's up, which should be imminent. For various reasons, we aren't sending out tons of them; for example they won't go to everybody who has ever contacted us, so if you haven't got one yet, and you would like a printed version, let us know and we'll organise the Knobbly Stick elves (just back from the North Pole after a stint doing their holiday job) to get one in then post to you.

We'll also be preparing a new newsletter soon, including some more of our highly acclaimed wild life notes, so look out for that.

All good wishes for 2009 from Pete and John at Knobbly Stick.