The walking may be laboured, but the text isn't.' As with his previous books, the prose is considered and measured and the sense of place and purpose is written with clarity. In it were two boat journeys out to the small rocks that punctuate the sea off the west coast of Scotland. 'Another beautifully written book by Macfarlane. These are the accounts of a series of walks and journeys that he made alone and with others in the UK and in Spain, the Himalayas and Palestine.

Published : 2012 (This Edition 2013 - Penguin).

MacFarlane discovers that paths offer not just a means of traversing space, but of feeling, knowing, and thinking. His walks take him from the chalk downs of England to the bird islands of the Scottish northwest, from Palestine to the sacred landscapes of Spain and the Himalayas.Īlong the way he crosses paths with walkers of many kinds - wanderers, pilgrims, guides, and artists.Ībove all this is a book about walking as a journey inward and the subtle ways we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move. Told in MacFarlane's distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology and literature.

The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. In this exquisitely written book, Robert MacFarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond.

The old ways macfarlane