Walking gets you into nature and makes you feel better!
To help promote #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek we talked to Marla Baird, who created the Facebook Group, Ayrshire Walks, about the benefits of walking and why this group has been such a success.
I decided to set up a local walking group because although I was enjoying being a member of the Scottish Women’s Walking Group, I was finding that many of the walks were taking place too far from home. I got together with a few people from Ayrshire, and we started to do our own walks that were on our doorstep. When you are trying to make time in your busy life to go out a walk, often you don’t want a long drive, you just want something nearby.
Then I thought, this would be better if we opened it up to a wider community so that people can make connections with others who have a similar interest. I decided to start a Facebook group called Ayrshire Walks: Find your Happy Place. As a member of this group, you can promote walks in Ayrshire and share your photos, walk routes and upcoming walking events.
This all happened just before the lockdown. Once we were in lockdown the group really took off with hundreds of people joining every week. At a time when we had to stay local, sharing ideas for ‘walks near me’ really took off. For those who could not get out at all, it became their window to the world. Many people really missed the freedom to travel to the beach or the countryside and it really cheered people up to see photos and stories from around our beautiful Ayrshire.
Currently we have just over 30,000 members! It has been a great success and its come about at a time when we all felt the need to be more connected to our community. I wish I had more time to make the group better, but I work full time. I am the main administrator – although my daughters do help with approving new members and new posts. We approve every post so that we can be reassured that it’s the type of post that will be relevant to our members.
Many walking groups are members and share a lot of their news and events and details of new walks you can explore. It’s a great group to get inspiration and ideas for a walk route. I try to share other pages that I think will be of interest to our group such as nature, wildlife or offers and promotions related to walking. We get great engagement and it’s the members that make the page the success it is. Typically, it’s the members that answer questions posed by individuals and they give really good help and advice. You can also use the search function on the group to navigate to previous posts that might interest you. eg typing in waterfalls will return all our posts that mention waterfalls.
I love walking because it gets me out into nature and makes me feel better. It’s great for my wellbeing, keeps me fit, it’s free to do and you can walk in any weather. There are so many benefits to walking, but the main one is it’s just good for you!
There has been lots of research and studies that show walking is excellent for your mental health. We all benefit from the daylight, sunshine, fresh air, nature and moving our bodies as well as the social aspect of connecting with other people. Walking releases endorphins and makes us feel so much better.
Walking is good for practicing mindfulness. For example, you can get great apps on your phones that will help you identify plants and flowers and wildlife so that you can immerse yourself in the moment. On our walk from Alloway to Doonfoot tonight, we have seen rabbits scurrying about, we can hear the bird song and we have had a lovely chat with horse riders Holly and Kate having a hack along this cycle path with horses – Cora and Jessie. There is a real feel-good factor from every walk, and we have to be grateful for that.
In terms of the future of ‘Ayrshire walks’, I would very much like to develop it. At the moment, I am doing this as a volunteer, but there could be scope for making it into a business and applying for funding to create a website with more detailed information about each walking route. I think the information people are looking for includes; how accessible is the walk, where to start a walk, where to park, what to take with you, how long will the walk take, interesting stops along the route etc.
I was volunteering at the Boswell Book Festival recently and since then I have developed a walk from the car park at Dumfries House to Boswell Quill in Auchinleck. In Auchinleck there is a churchyard trail that’s interesting; one of the graves is Mathew Tait, the oldest man in Scotland – he lived until he was 126! On his grave are two women’s faces, one happy and one sad. One was his first wife, and one was his second wife! For walkers it’s providing information to wee gems like this that can make the walk more interesting. I’ll post this as a file on the Ayrshire Walks page and people can enjoy it.
I think once the mural is completed in the Alloway Railway Tunnel, this will form a wonderful gateway to the path down to the coast with spectacular views to the Heads of Ayr and Greenan Castle. One of the best features of this walk is it’s a really accessible walk to Greenan Shore that can be enjoyed by families with buggies, wheelchair users etc.
Marla Baird, Ayrshire Walks was interviewed by trustee, Shelagh McLachlan for
#NationalWalkingMonth and #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek
