‘’Desire lines,’ – never heard of them? Nor had I until we were planning the route of the Staunton Ridgeway nearly thirty years ago. Jacqueline and I lived at Melbourne then, and wanted to make a footpath which would connect to Staunton Harold. We had the farm tenants and shooting syndicate on board, but we wanted to make a small diversion into Water Board land to connect with another footpath.
We contacted the Water Board’s footpath officer, who was very helpful. She not only arranged our diversion, but helped with other aspects of the path. From her we learnt about ‘desire lines.’ These are routes which walkers choose for themselves rather than follow the waymarked path. Most often it’s a case of going straight across a field rather than going round the edge, quite a problem if the farmer has sown a field of wheat.
One desire line that we didn’t have too much of a problem with arose on the sloping grass field above Staunton’s Golden Gate Bridge, which we call the Fossil Bank. Here we moved the yellow posts to the preferred route, and it has since become a desire line in another way. Last week our friends from Ashby picnicked by the lake while their daughter climbed the field up to the wooden bench and accepted an engagement ring. This is not the first time; a beech tree nearby marks where another couple became engaged about eight years ago. Who knows – there may be others, an unexpected bonus of our pathway.