In ‘lockdown’ our business was hit very hard, we had to think on our feet and keep the doors open.
We opened a coffee window for takeouts and then a fine walker called Michelle told us about a “fairy walk’ for our 3 yr old daughter.
Set of we did with gusto, and sure enough it was magical; someone had made the effort to put some fairy doors in trees.
My brain kicked in and we started advertising the fairy walk with a map that cunningly started (and finished!) at our pub.
We gave away over 600 free maps that week. I even bought some fairy doors to add to the walk and sold them for other kids to do as well.
People asked for other walks so we created one called ‘Old Lepton’ and mapped it out - slight hitch, the route went past a friends house - a big ole house on a private road. One phone call later from Richard about hundreds of people walking down his private road (used to be the footpath - we were using an old book!)
So we hastily re routed it.
Then I asked Michelle who did a lot of walking if she could put together some walks - and she did, with fabulous rhyming stories!
🧚♀️The Shrog - kids loved this walk
⚔️Thorgor’s Walk - Longer, bit more adventurous - finished at Viking burial ground
👻Tricky Dicky - The pub I owned was previously owned by a “Highway Man” allegedly haunts the pub.
🦊White Stripes & Bushy Tales - Battle between foxes and badgers on a long walk
My only regret was not doing this sooner - it was so busy and added so much trade when we were not allowed out apart from exercise.
We did an Easter Sunday egg hunt walk with route map and instructions - people asked if it was hard to follow I just replied - follow the queue around the field, we had around 1000 people turn up for the walk and I had to go out and buy every Easter egg I could get my hands on.
Then we reopened and the walks faded away as normality resumed.
The last time we did one of the walks it was so overgrown you could hardly get through the weeds and stinging nettles.
We had planned to do this in 2023 then 2024 then finally Alison said let’s do some walks and post them on socials and see what happens.
SO I decided to build an app and make it a bit more fun and we are nearly ready hence the posts building up to this.
We looked at names and nothing was available all across digital world - it had to be simple catchy and unused. We went through loads until it just popped in my head - STOMPLINGS.
It was unused everywhere so we bought the domains, registered on socials and we are off!
Well nearly…….
If you’ve found us and want to be a beta tester of the app then let us know in comments - it records your route and records the wildlife you’ve spotted, then gives you a hard copy option all for free.