About us

Route-Builders First, Tour Operators Second

The business began with two people, a measuring wheel and an argument with a guidebook. Published river routes kept sending walkers along the wrong bank, over stiles that had rotted away, or onto a main road for six kilometres because the path had been fenced off years earlier. So they surveyed the whole valley themselves, negotiated access with farmers and municipalities, cut the sections that had grown over, and produced route notes that actually matched the ground. Everything since has been built on that survey work, which is repeated every spring.

Today we maintain waymarking on four hundred kilometres of path in cooperation with local councils, replace signs after storms, keep a live status page for closures and flooding, and repair surfaces on the sections nobody else has taken responsibility for. Our route packs carry the current year of survey data, including where the path becomes rough, which gates are heavy, where the shade runs out and how far it is to the next tap, toilet or place selling a sandwich.

The rest of the operation exists to remove friction. We work with about sixty guesthouses, farms and small hotels along the routes, all inspected by us and paid promptly. Our vans move luggage each morning and rescue anyone who has had enough. Bikes are serviced in our own workshop. None of it is glamorous, and all of it is the reason people who have never walked more than five kilometres finish a week of forty-kilometre days.