Family Walk Along Tern Valley (East), Shropshire: Canals, Countryside & a Racing Challenge

Our first ‘No Work Wednesday’ came around, the weather was predicted to be dry, and we were ready for an adventure! My eldest had been unusually poorly for the last two days, with a temperature, lethargic and complaining of a headache – coupled with some interesting sleep walking episodes – but today he said he was definitely back to himself and wanted to get outside!

I’ve wanted to be completely honest with this blog, and when I describe it as “our low budget adventures in the UK”, I genuinely mean that. With that in mind, today’s adventure was going to have to be in the immediate area, as we didn’t have the fuel to get the car out, but that’s fine because it makes us use our imaginations AND hopefully it helps other families in the same situation to explore their possibilities too. The rise in the cost of living has really pushed us to our limits, and we know we aren’t alone. I’m hoping to inspire other families to find things that they can not only enjoy together, but also get to do for free. I’m a huge advocate in getting outside into the fresh air, it’s so great for both our  physical and mental wellbeing, and I want to encourage my boys to choose the great outdoors over video games – and, it’s free!

Walks Near Me

In my recent Google searches, I’ve discovered so many local villages have their own walks, or even a series of walks in some cases. If you own an Ordance Survey map (or even the app, if you’re a cool tech person!) you will know that you can use this to scope out local footpaths too, but what I particularly love about the walks I found from local villages, is that they show recommended circulars, or join several smaller routes into an interesting circular, and often go into detail on the terrain and suitability for various ages – and I’ve found them to be really helpful. Oh, helpful tip: if you’re on a budget, and if you’re reading this you probably are, you may be interested to know that you can find local and even national OS Maps in your local library! So you don’t even need to buy one! There’s no excuse to not get out!

I would also highly encourage you to take a look online to see if a local council or group have created some walks for your area! With so much focus on getting outdoors, and the mental and physical benefits of walking, there’s been a real increase in making local walks known and easily found! Other organisations I’ve found to do the same are the National Trust, Walking Britain, the AA and so many more – just Google “walks near me”!

Shropshire Union Canal

The Shropshire Union Canal is just under a mile from our home, and is a popular option for us when we’re looking for a local walk. It is popular for many, in fact, and a well walked route, with several circular options if you’re willing to hop off the canal path. It’s not only a beautiful walk, but more importantly, its safe (we are surrounded by country roads, but over the past few years we’ve found the traffic has increased significantly, with drivers tending to drive faster too). We sadly have no designated footpaths or cycle path schemes near us – although I feel there are some obvious missed opportunies by the council, despite them saying they’re trying to encourage cycling (but that’s a post for another day!).

We joined the canal at Tyrley Locks, a flight of 5 locks that lowers the canal by 10 metres. It was busy today, with every lock having a queue of at least one narrowboat waiting to use it! On quieter days, the boys have helped various friendly narrowboaters with opening or closing the lock gates, but everyone was a bit more focussed this morning (boys and boaters!) I like that this section has a decent sized walkway running alongside it, and bar a really low section that never seems to dry, it’s an enjoyable walk.

Personally, I prefer walking the opposite way at Tyrley, towards the Wharf Tavern. It’s usually quieter; we rarely encounter other walkers, and it leads to a wonderful Pub with a delicious menu! Sadly though, over the past few years, the towpath has been hit with numerous landslides, often resulting in signposts telling you it’s closed for access. Last summer I tried that route again but could only get halfway before I admitted defeat from the overgrown undergrowth – namely thorns and nettles – I wasn’t getting through!

Geocaching – again!

About a third of the way up to the next town of Market Drayton was our first opportunity to find a Geocache, but this was in the section that is notoriously muddy. It’s been a very wet year, and whilst it often starts to dry up in July and August, we just couldn’t get close enough to the location without wellies (and I wasn’t going to walk several miles in wellies!). It was a bust, but further up was a second opportunity, and this one was a success! It was a fun cache, very child-centric, and it was here, after rooting through the cache, that we placed the Trackable that we had discovered at Ford Hall Farm, in the hopes that a passing Boater will find it and take it many more miles than we did! Bon Voyage little Trackable!

Stopping to look for Geocaches can be a great way to break up a walk and allow smaller legs to rest and re-energise! If you aren’t sure what a Geocache is, why not read about them here!

Tern Valley Walks

Today’s walk was one we do regularly, and initially pieced together when we first moved here, using our OS map, but it is also a recognised circular walk listed on the Walking England website. The actual walk, the Tern Valley Walk “East Side”, is hosted on the Shropshire Great Outdoors website – more details are in the links provided, but the maps (we followed the route in blue) can be seen below.

This circular route is 3 miles long, but after a meander through the town to enjoy the Market Day, a short diversion through a thicket, and our walk to the route and back, we actually totalled 5.6 miles! My eldest was beginning to feel flaky again by the time we reached the town (he hasn’t been himself the last few days) so we enjoyed a drink and a break in Jones’ coffee shop, before heading back – he felt much better after this!

Family Feedback: Tern Valley Walk (East)

I always like to ask the boys how they felt about a walk or activity once they have done it – it helps me guage whether it is something we should do again, find something similar, or work out what we could do to improve it if we did do it again. Even though this is one walk we have done often, I still asked the same question.

My 8 Year Old said he loved the section via the Canal the best – I think this was mostly driven by the fact that one narrowboater challenged him to a race (despite ramping the engines, he still won and was incredibly proud of himself!)

My 10 Year Old said he loved looking at the roots of this silver tree we walked past! We must have walked past it a hundred times, but it was only today that we all noticed it! It was incredibly silky and silvery looking – we aren’t tree experts, do you know what it is?

TOTAL MILES: 5.66 | TOTAL TIME: 2.5 Hours