iWalk Cornwall

Cornwall Council have collaborated with us to get a grant to procure and install some new footpath signs and waymark posts for some of the inland paths connecting to the coast path used by our routes. Obviously there are still a lot more footpath signs on the inland paths in need of replacement but it's a positive step in the right direction. The new signs/posts are hardwood so they should last a bit longer than the ones they have replaced. They are now in place on the following walks: Port Quin to Port Isaac Mount Edgcumbe to Kingsand Sennen Cove to Land's End Mevagissey to Portmellon Widemouth to Bude Mousehole to Lamorna Cove

A question we often get asked is whether it's possible to start a circular walk from a location part-way round the route with the app. The answer is yes. When you first reach a direction point on the route, the app will offer to navigate from here. You can then follow the walk until you reach what is normally the end of the route. Once you reach the normal end of the walk, make your way to direction 1 (note that in some cases e.g. where there is only one way out of the car park, the start/end of the walk and direction 1 will be in the same place so this step won't apply). Tip: This is most easily done with the help of the map screen as the hand-written wording for the last direction will be based on how to get back to your car to end the walk at the normal location, not how to get to direction 1. Once you reach direction 1, the app should detect that you didn't start at the beginning and offer to continue the walk from direction 1. You can then continue using t...

On the "More options" menu of the app, there's a "Check for walk updates" option and on the home screen of the app there's a "Restore purchases" button. As they are fairly similar, you may wonder what the difference is. Each has a subtly different purpose. "Check for walk updates" is normally the one you want. It will check: For any walks purchased on another device on the same platform into the same Apple ID (Apple) or Google Account (Android) For any purchases from this device delayed with Apple/Google that haven't been delivered to the app yet For each of the walks in My Walks, whether any updates to the walk content are available "Restore purchases" is a belt-and-braces for things "check for walk updates" won't fix. It gets a list of everything from Apple or Google and then re-downloads all your walks in My Walk again, regardless of whether each is up-to-date.  If a walk gets corrupted on the device (e....

By using data about which walks have been downloaded, we've created a mechanism to help distribute people across our circular walks in Cornwall to assist with social distancing and footpath wear. We've done this by starting with a list of walks in generally quieter locations and then combining this with some automated spreading mechanisms so that there isn't a rush on a particular walk: The starting point is a list of walks which are off the beaten track These are shuffled into a different random order for every person to reduce the chances of any flocking on any one walk Anything that starts to float up into the most downloaded walks over the last 7 days is automatically removed from the list until it quietens down It's also worth noting that the circular routes are written in a single direction only so the chances of meeting people walking in the opposite direction is minimised. Note that being in rural locations: from June onwards, the footpaths may get overgrow...

Most of the iWalk Cornwall routes are between 4-6 miles which very roughly corresponds to 2-4 hours walking time.  This can either be done as a half-day walk, or as a longer day out with time left over to explore beaches and stop for a meal in a café etc.   To support walks longer than this, on the information page about each walk within the "Walks shop" section of the app, many of the walks have an "Adjoining walks" section. This allows a more demanding walk to be planned by stitching 2 of the normal circular routes together to make a longer figure-of-8 walk.  Here are some tips for how you can use the app to do this: Just before you approach the point where the 2 routes join, exit the first walk and load up the second. This will gives the app chance to track you approaching the direction point on the second walk, and it will start recording progress for the second walk.    If the first walk meets the second walk part-way around:  once you...

To add to the shorter and easier walks list  already in the app, we've also started collecting  an additional list of short-cuttable walks  (just over 50 so far) that can either:  be cut down from their normal length into a shorter circular walk be split into 2 separate shorter circular walks As well as providing lots more 2 and 3 mile walks, these also include some 1-2 mile walks that are even shorter than our shortest full walks.   The list includes some information on where to split or cut down each walk where it's not obvious.  We'll gradually add more walks to the list as we spot more opportunities. Below are some tips for shortcutting using the app... Ignore off-route app warnings whilst shortcutting One of the features of the app is that when you depart from the (normal) route, it will warn you.  It doesn't know about the shortcuts you will be taking in these cases so it will warn you once you depart the main route.  Since you know wh...