Anyone who has opened up an ordnance survey map would have seen countless green dotted pathways, sometimes punctuated by diamonds cutting through fields, forests, and farms. These are public footpaths along which all people can walk and no landowner can prevent your travel along them, though it would appear they would really rather not have you there. During my DofE practice expedition this seemed to be the one constant of all the footpaths, the subtle feeling of the person whose land you were walking along not wanting you to be there. This subtle feeling sometimes became very evident when walking along certain paths there was a sign every 10 metres stating the public footpath did not include the grass and walking along it would be considered trespassing. 

 

Occasionally not only the signs will be aggressive towards you but also the landowners who will roll past in their silver BMWs or Range Rovers and complain how much of an inconvenience you walking on a public footpath on their multiple acres of property is. Overall it felt as though most footpaths were neglected and shoved to the side. One in particular stays in my memory as the official footpath forced one to duck through trees and walk through a stream to keep following it. When you finally reached the stays they were nothing more than a few rotten planks on the ground. These footpaths allow people to have access to beautiful parts of the country and traverse through the countryside without a car and hoping that you won't get hit walking along an A-road. It should be possible to live without a car wherever you live due to their high cost and so the protection of them are necessary.