Surveys reveal that walking is by far the most popular leisure activity in the UK, and still growing. Each year some half a billion ‘leisure day visits’ specifically involve walking in the countryside and over 60 percent of the adult population claim to participate in walking as a ‘sport’. These statistics serve to confirm our own experience that enormous numbers of walkers go out to enjoy the countryside, but when we say ‘walker’ we include Sunday afternoon strollers in Windsor Great Park, a rambling group following the coastal path in Dorset, strong fit youths doing the Pennine Way, or Munro baggers in the Scottish highlands. Walkers come in many a hue.