ULVERSTON WALKFEST

2025 is the 25th Anniversary of this great festival, which goes from strength to strength. 

The 2025 festival will be at its traditional time from Saturday 26th April until Monday 5th May (the Early May Bank Holiday).  There will be the usual wide range of walks to cover all tastes.

The 2024 Festival was a great success.  There were 39 walks, which will remain on display under our 2024 Walks page until we up-load the 2025 programme in early March 2025.   Adding up all the walks, including leaders, saw a grand total of 535 walkers, our highest number since we adopted email booking and restricted walk sizes, for safety reasons. Another way of putting it was that there were 231 individual walkers of whom 103 did 1 walk, 112 did 2 to 5 walks, 12 did 6 to 9 walks, 1 did 12 walks and our champion, Paddy Dillon – the Cicerone walking guide’s author, who did an amazing 15 walks over the 10 days.

Lifts and Car Share.  The only area we feel is worth bringing to your attention is the difference between ‘a lift to a walk’ and ‘car share’.  The former is only intended for those who really NEED a lift, probably due to not having access to a car, including those who attend the festival by public transport.  It is not for those who have access to a car but prefer not to use it.  This group should use the ‘car share’ arrangement whereby walkers come to Ford Park (except for the Saturdays due to the Park Run) and share cars with other walkers to reduce petrol usage and parking at the walk start.  Those unfamiliar with the area could use this arrangement either to share with others or to follow another car. On some walks in 2024, both walk leaders had to fill their cars with walkers who had requested a lift, when ideally one of the leaders would have gone direct to the start to meet any early arrivals.

Self-Guided Walks.  A new facility which has just gone live is the ‘Self-Guided Walks’ facility on this website, and shortly to be available free in paper map format from local shops.  There are 2 back-to-back maps – one of Central Ulverston, including a Blue Plaque Walk, and one showing 6 walks which can be completed from Ulverston. The QR codes will present a digital map on a smart-phone, including your actual location and information on the route and notable sites encountered.  This amazing facility is the brainchild of one of our leaders and has been put together by several of our leader.

New Walk Leaders.  We are looking for new walk leaders for 2025.  If you would like to be involved but are not confident to be the main leader, we are happy to have you as a co-leader for your first year, but you would still need to be capable of leading the walk should anything untoward happen on the walk.    If you are interested, contact the secretary (email below).

Many thanks to those who joined us in 2024.  We hope you enjoyed your walks and look forward to welcoming a similar number in 2025 for another great festival to mark our 25th Anniversary. Contact may be made with the Secretary using ulverstonwalks@gmail.com

Last updated: 05/09/24