Ways to make the most of May’s Spring Bank Holiday
Just those words spring and bank holiday immediately conjure up images of a longer weekend waiting to be filled with a mini-adventure.
In fact there’s a reason why May is designated National Walking Month as it coincides with evenings getting lighter, the weather getting warmer and the uplifting sight of nature bursting into life just as spring gives way to summer.
Explore our full range of Spring Bank Holiday Adventures…
Whether it’s hearing a nightingale in woodland, noticing bees gorging on spring pollen, meeting a wall of sound on a clifftop caused by the multitude of nesting sea birds; or being stopped in your tracks at the sight of a path lined with blossoming hawthorn, there is so much delight to be had by walking over the Bank Holiday at the end of May.
The benefit of the bank holiday also means you can use the extra day to venture further to pastures new such as Pembrokeshire with its wonderful dramatic coastline or Northumberland where ancient history, wildlife and sandy beaches provide a heady combination for spring walking.
That extra day off work can also be just the nudge people need to nab a longer holiday for a week’s hiking in places like the Isle of Skye before the summer crowds arrive and the midges still haven’t got up to their full annoying force.
For many, the Spring Bank Holiday presents a good opportunity to achieve a personal walking goal or have a new experience. After all, it’s great if you’ve tested yourself on a tougher hike on a Saturday knowing you have not just the Sunday but also the Monday holiday in which to recover!
It’s probably for this reason that both the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge and our sunrise hike to the top of Snowdon, when you start off walking under a blanket of stars and reach the summit at daybreak, are popular ones to try out over the Spring Bank Holiday.
We could go on waxing lyrical about spring walking but instead we thought we’d share these poetic words that we came across the other day and which in a funny kind of way sums up what is magical about striding out at the end of May.
Here I can feel the grass singing beneath my feet.
Now is where I can be.
And it is where you will find me, caught in the present,
no pull of the past.