WALKS WITH VIEWS Clear your head with a glorious upland walk

I put one foot in front of the other and then paused for breath just below the final climb to the summit of the mountain. Before setting off, I looked back to see the Pennine Way, Britain’s oldest long-distance footpath, shimmering silver in the sunlight and snaking away into the horizon. The Pennine Way stretches through 268 miles (435km) of the country, uniting north with south, east with west. It’s known as ‘the backbone of Britain’ and had, like some magnetic force, pulled me in to walk upon it.

It was being racially abused on a TransPennine Express train that prompted my journey along the Pennine Way. “Go back