AN adventurer who has climbed Kilimanjaro and drove a Tuk Tuk across India has said she has come to realise there really is no place like home.

Claire Jenkins, originally from Ross-on-Wye, left the county in 2001 for a job in London.

Ms Jenkins has always had a great love of the outdoors and travelling, so when the Covid pandemic hit in March 2020, it was a real culture shock.

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Ms Jenkins said: "I had spent my life globetrotting, seeing amazing places, climbing Kilimanjaro, getting to Everest base camp and driving a Tuk Tuk accross India that I really thought I had seen everything."

 

Claire and her Tuk Tuk in India

Claire and her Tuk Tuk in India

 

However it was moving back to Herefordshire in late 2020 that opened her eyes to the amazing places on her doorstep.

She said: "London in lockdown and living on my own was not a great place to be, so when restrictions allowed, I packed up and moved back to be near my family."

Ms Jenkins' world had shrunk and she knew if she was going to do any adventuring it would have to be local.

She has since walked around almost all the trig points in the county and aims to have completed them all in a few months.

Trig points are the common name for "triangulation pillars".

These are concrete pillars, about 4 foot tall, which were used by the Ordnance Survey in order to determine the exact shape of the country.

They are generally located on the highest bit of ground in the area, so that there is a direct line of sight from one to the next.

Ms Jenkins said: I'm a Geography graduate and a lover of maps so am interested in getting out and looking for things like that."

Being restricted with travel led to her getting out and about in Herefordshire and she has visited places that she had never been to before.

Ms Jenkins has climbed Cat's Back in the Black Mountains, Dinedor Hill, near Hereford, Hergest Ridge, near Kington and many others.

She aims to finish off the trig points in the county when she finishes her challenge in the Bromyard Downs.

By then she thinks she will have covered almost the whole of the county.

Ms Jenkins said: "The pandemic was horrible for lots of reasons but a great thing that came out of it, is that it reacquainted me with this stunning place and made me realise how lucky we are to live here.

"Restriction on movement forced me to look more locally for adventure and opened my eyes to the fantastic hidden gems that Herefordshire has to offer."

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