American Reacts 5 Days Hiking & Wild Camping on Britain's Oldest Road 

They are blackberries. They are so common, even kids of 3 or 4 know what they are and pick them.

I walked this path with my wife and two young daughters one hot dry summer some years ago, camping on route . It is one of my most precious memories, especially now I am older and , because of arthriitis, unlikely to do such a walk again.

Yes it is productive farmland. What you describe as savannah is either fields where the wheat or barley crops have just been harvested (late summer) or where, due to crop rotation, they have been left fallow for a season. You might like to check out Clarksons Farm for more insight into our farming cycles/practices. And most farmers will leave a strip of untilled land around fields to help wildlife and encourage wild flowers for bees.

I’m in Denmark 🇩🇰 This year a lot of potatos and maize was never been harvested. It’s just too wet and cold😮‍💨 We have a Road here “Hærvejen” that has been used by travellers, merchants, pilgrims, cattle drives and armies for millennia.

They are blackberries and are found all over the countryside beside paths and hedgerows. Every child recognises them and because they are a distinct shape they are easy to recognise. Never pick the low-lying fruit as animals or persons may have urinated on them. They make excellent pies and fruit juice, although blackcurrants are the norm for juice. Think Ribena, which you may be able to buy in the USA.

So much cram in to theses small Islands beautiful countryside,castles ,fantastic beaches beautiful villages ,and our history which I believe is second to none we are very lucky to live in a fantastic country

Wild blackberries he picked have a far superior flavour to any you'll find in a supermarket. Btw picking the berries helps the bushes, and encourages larger fruit in future

Everyone eats blackberries. Lovely! Also no dangerous animals in the UK, except wasps and bees! We have public footpaths all over the UK so you can always find somewhere lovely to walk. Yes, it's farmland, the UK is very rural.

Literally 10 minutes from where I live. Never get tired of walking parts of the Ridgeway

I like Avebury where he started much more than Stonehenge: it's so spread out that English Heritage haven't been able to turn it into a theme park as they have Stonehenge.

We have some beautiful countryside here in the South of England, and I certainly never use it but I should.

The Stone structure he looked at was a Neolithic Chambered Long Barrow called Wayland's Smithy built around 3550 BC. A little further on is the Uffington White Horse and Hill Fort I'm surprised he didn't show it it's a major Neolithic complex and one of the most important sites along the Ridgeway. Before anyone asks how I know this, I live very locally to it and know it all very well.

The pillar seen at the end of the video is an Ordnance Survey trigonometry point. Used by surveyors to map the local area; THey are shown on OS maps and are set out at prominent landmarks in such a way that they are in sight of the next trig point usualy in a triangular pattern. Originally set up by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The berries are blackberries. You can buy them in the supermarket like raspberries and strawberries, so they’re easily recognisable.

Connor please take a look at the Cotswold Way walk done by Off Day Adventures. Ben and Rachel are a couple of Americans who did this walk over 9 days this year. Their videos are very enjoyable.

It's odd to me that someone doesn't recognise cereal stubble in fields and confuses it with dried up grassland. The texture is so very different , and stubble is more or less all the same height - the height that the combine's cutter bar was set to.

I used to live near the Ridgeway. In the area I lived in, Uffington is a popular spot to go for walks, flying kites and getting fresh air.

Thats not a flower vase. Thats a hospital urinal.. 😂

its kinda hard to mess up with berries here, if you stick to raspberries blackberries and black raspberries you aint got much real chance of dying, its mushrooms and plants youre just not taught about usually like giant hogweed and shit if you dont do woods stuff yoiu probably wont know

UK daylight times today 21/12 - shortest day of the year. Full daylight about 8.30am - dark again by about 3.45/4pm. High summer/late June - light about 4am - mostly dark by about 10/10.15pm The source of the River Thames is close to a town called Cirencester in the county of Gloucestershire. The concrete pillar at the end is a 'trig point; they used to be used as measuring points for making maps and triangulating angle to allow distances to be calculated.

What you called a Savana, the grassy looking field. Looked like Barley to me. All of the fields in this video are farmland you can tell because they’re divided by hedgerows

Except for the mountainous areas, the British countryside is full of productive farmland, Connor. Crops grown include Barley, Wheat, Sweetcorn, Rapeseed and winter feed, if there are also animals around. Certain areas are filled with apple orchards, vineyards and even tea, which is becoming quite in even the most unlikeliest climes! Oats, Berry fruits - raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, pumpkins, squashes, potatoes, swede, turnips, cabbages, sprouts - salad vegetables including lettuces, kolhari, peas, beans, tomatoes, cucumber, courgettes, marrows, sugar beet, radishes, beetroot, rhubarb and even things like lavender, spring flowers, roses, tree saplings and much else, are grown in the warmer south. Areas such as lower mountainsides with poor soil coverage are often used for sheep farming, goats, alpacas, llamas, beef and dairy cattle; domestic pig farming is quite big just now, and wild boar farming is also on the increase as many of the wooded estates expand into such areas to diversify their incomes. Plus we have fish farms - salmon and trout, as well as ligustines and other shellfish - often on sea-lochs and rivber mouths around the coasts, as well as deep sea trawler fisheries; and in many areas there are managed timber farms, whereby trees will be grown for a generation then felled and processed and, after a few years, replaced with another generation of trees! We also fish our rivers - usually by purchasing permits from the relevant agents, though this tends more towards the leisure and tourism end of the market. Deer farming is becoming more popular in upland areas; while many of the larger private estates will host grouse and pheasnt-shooting parties - though traditional hunting is now severely restricted by law, especially of larger game. Beavers have been gradually reintroduced over the past 20 or 30 years, and there is work to reintroduce some critically endangered species such as the Scottish Wildcat, in secret locations of the Cairngorm National Park, for instance. The sheer number of wild red and roe deer now that hunting has been outlawed is causing a few problems in areas of the Scottish Highlands and there is talk of reintroducing the Eurasian Lynx or possibly wolves in very small and controlled numbers, as natural predators that would help with this problem! We often do experience full blue sky days in both summer and winter, incidentally! In late May to late June, Southern England might expect 17 hours of daylight, which increases to 20+ hours in the far north of Scotland and 22+ hours in the Shetland Isles, meaning that it effectively doesn't get fully dark for several weeks around the summer solstice. Of course the opposite is also true in winter, with much of December having around 9, 6.5 and 3.5 hours, respectively. We use Greenwich Mean Time from the end of October to the end of March, and GMT +1 otherwise.

You mentioned Ticks a few times, while we do have ticks, I don't think they are as much of a problem as they are in the States. I've just turned 60 and have NEVER had a tick or even know ANY of my friends and family to pick one up!

I love The Ridgeway, though I've only walked along a fairly small section of it. It's situated along chalk uplands, which look easy to climb from the ground, but those hills are deceptively steep, and I found them hard going. I have a book about the Ridgeway, and it says the trackway was in use before these islands broke away from the European mainland. I have no idea if that's true, but the idea is mind-blowing.

@ 5.42 : Yes that looks like productive farmland to me although the field bottom left might be lying fallow. Poppies grow wild in the summer in the fields. I lived in Tring for about six years, it's nice little town and beautiful countryside.

It's currently winter and we've had pure blue skies 4 days in a row, its cold but blue and the sun is out... in summer and spring the sky is blue most days.

Everything from the point he crosses the Thames is the area I grew up in. The landscape is stunning, in a different way to mountains admittedly. Ivinghoe should be pronounced ‘EYE-ving-hoe’ by the way. The woods look like Monty Python because they’re about seven or eight miles from them, and it used to be one continuous beech forest across most of south Bucks (which was the centre of furniture and paper making in the country for a long time)

The Savannah type areas. I'm assuming that field is lying fallow for a year to heal. Everywhere else around the Ridgeway is good farming and has been farmed since agriculture came to Britain some 6,000 years ago. Its likely the original farmers came from southern Europe and Doggerland.

The start of the river Thames is near Cirencester, Gloucestershire in the Cotswolds. (Near where I live). We do have completely clear skies in Britain when we are having good weather. In mid summer in the south of England it gets dark around 10 pm.

Walked the Ridgeway three times from East to West. The western section is wonderful and you see very few people. A great walk.

71% of UK land is devoted to agriculture. In June it’s light til 10pm.

In summer it is light until approximately 10 pm and gets dark around 4 pm in winter. We have cloudless sunny skies in summer sometimes. The river Thames rises in the Cotswolds near Cirencester.

Longest day of the year June 21st in Southern England....light till gone 10pm

Lovely video. Blue skies? Yes with no clouds too. Barley, wheat, corn fields. I can't speak for everyone obviously but the people I know and come across are, " what will be will be" attitudes. Just go with it, don't stress about things you can't change.✌

We get blue skys when theres High pressure Summer or sometimes in winter ,the longest days in Summer are in June this coming year it will be 20thJune 2024 . at least 16 hours of daylight. When i camped in Scotland it never got completely dark. In England Sun Down at 11pm up by 7am.. This is the Summer Solstice. Edit Theres a video on here a guy canoeing the Thames from its source.

On the south coast, daylight is 8am till 4pm in winter, 4am till about 9:30/10pm in the summer.

"Haze isn't fidden," actually sounds like ancient English, so very appropriate. I love walking places like this, I prefer to take my time though, not a yomper like this guy, but more a potterer.

Rainfall varies a lot in Britain with the west getting far more than the east. Parts of Cumberland get 250 inches a year, while East Kent (where I live) is officially designated as semi-arid. Rain can and does fall at any time of the year throughout the island, but that does not mean that there are not many cloudless days, especially in the south-east.

I live 10 mins away from the start of the Ridgeway path....and it is indeed stunning!

I love the Ridgeway, and also the Greater Ridgeway which is an extension of the Ridgeway east and west making it a 362 mile trail from Dorset to Norfolk. On the Ridgeway proper I think the area around Wendover is one of the best bits, which wasn't really covered in the video. The Boddington Hill is an ancient hillfort near Wendover and it's my favorite side walk, and hidden away in some woods near there is a monument marking the highest point in the Chiltern Hills; the hills making up the ridges the path follows. So much of the path to the west has farmers fields either side, but once you get past Chequers and into the woods from there to Tring it's much more enjoyable a walk but not as photogenic because you're walking through trees, and some people might say that's as boring a farmer's fields but not for me. Unfortunately, back in 2020, when I'd completed about half of the Greater Ridgeway the "you know what" messed up my plans for that year, and since then I've only been back to do a day's walking here and there, now and then. I keep telling myself in 2024 I'll start again and walk the whole 362 miles; but then I said that a year ago about 2023. I've just started my retirement so no excuses I'm going to do it.

Yep, I've been in the North of Scotland in mid summer and seen golfers playing at 11pm.! For you, it's great for travelling - you can have your evening meal in a pub and then afterwards still go out walking or driving in daylight.

We often get totally blue skies! Depends which way the wind is blowing ! Remember, UK is in the middle of the Atlantic ! We have the total range of weather, from heat waves , to storms, to droughts, from endless sun to rain, and the amazing thing is it is such a small Island but the weather varies enormously from North to South and from East to West. Cannot get bored !

Yes Connor, we do get completely blue skies sometimes. By the longest day, the sun rises at about 4.30am & sets about 9. 30pm.

Black Berries are fantastic, i have alot in my garden hedge. I pick them cover with a dusting of iceing sugar and freeze them great in a gin and tonic, yummy frozen fruit burst. Crabapples are smaller, soit was just a apple. Its very strange getting out of a nightclub in Dundee ( alive) at 3am and its day light in the north you do get alot of day light and we often get no clouds clear days . In the winter it is very dark SAD lights are a great thing.

At the height of summer, the sun rises at about 04.00 and sets about 22.30 in the evening

You should watch Off Day Adventures, hiking the Cotswolds way, two Americans. The Thames river starts at Thames Head near Kemble in Gloucestershire.

26:50 It does! The black knight sequence was filmed in Epping Forest.

you be suprised that we do get fully blue skies :) Its not uncommon :)

No, we often get unbroken blue skies in the summer . 2020, 2021 we had 10 weeks of no rain and hot weather topping at 100f, 2022 was a dry one too

Only pick edible berries that are higher than a dog can lift its back leg...😁

River Thames starts in Gloucestershire, you could say not too far from Bath (although Bath is in a different county). You can get all this kind of info. on line, with pictures, etc.

The vase was my comment Conner lol, and you're still doing it. get a bucket man! 😆😆😆

In the height of summer, the sun can go down around 9pm at night or later. Winter in the UK can be depressing with little sunlight for days

We can have amazingly clear blue sky's but people in the know crave those Simpson clouds.

In southern England they get an average of 6.5 hours of sunshine per day, in summer and a totally, clear blue sky is not that rare. But, it cannot be guaranteed. So, we all go away for the summer to somewhere with dawn til dusk sunshine. My cousin used to work in construction, in Chicago. He cooked in summer and froze in winter. I was a postie in Newcastle; every time I have seen a postie in Spain, or Greece, or Italy, I have always been grateful that I was seated in the shade, with a beer and didn't have to suffer their climate. When it comes to livable climates, it doesn't get much better than the UK. 🙂

the stone piller you saw at the end of the Vid is what is known as a Trigpoint , used to help with the mapping of the countryside as on OS maps

The official source of the River Thames is a spring in a field north of the Gloucestershire village of Kemble.

We get clear blue skies a lot in he summer. Our summers are long days from around 4-5am to 9:30-10pm in winter its the opposite. Sunlight from aournd 8-9am until 3:30-4pm

the thames is one of the cleanest rivers in europe

What always amazes me about this particular guy's walks is that he's occasionally filmed from a distance. He's on his own, so he obviously has to go back for his mobile (?), adding to the actual full length he's covered. Incredible

Britain is very fertile, there’s a reason it was historically a popular invasion spot. They are harvested fields that you asked if they were active

We had a drought this summer hence the golden wheat fields.

The ‘thing’ at the end was a trig point - used by ordenance survey to map the country, most significant hills have them at the top.

Love watching and listening to your reactions. My top favourite, I think, is when you were learning the English accent. This one is good too btw

Keep the videos coming. You are open and curious. As for rain, in England East is dry , west is wet.....I don't think anyone uses fans......you can get clear blue sky

A barrow is an ancient tomb. I live near the Ridgeway and know Avebury and Wayland's Smithy very well.

Connor, I am sure you must know by now (?!) that _not_ all British (or English) swans belong to the Queen / reigning Monarch. The only swans🦢 which belong to our reigning Monarch, are the 'Mute Swans' 🦢 (&_not_ the 'Whooping Swans') which reside on 'The Isis' (which is the name given to 'The Thames' river where it flows through Oxford).😊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🖖

What is amazing about the Ridgeway is that it has been used as a road for at least 5000years! I believe that after the end of the last ice age about 10 to 12 thousand years ago Britain was entirely forested. The deforestation that lead to today's landscape is due to human activity. That is my understanding.

Mid summer its not really dark until 11:30pm. Most moons there is enough light to walk all night if you want.

When I was a kid a long time ago, we all knew which wild fruit were safe and which not. Blackberries, sloes, bilberries. Blackberries that he was picking are iconic British late summer fruit that we bake into pies and pudding or eat fresh off the bramble.

the start of the river thames is near cirencester, an old roman town. That in itself is really interesting - seeing the water flowing from below

Great video and always enjoy your comments/observations

Great reaction Connor 👍

Cool video. You can tell it’s probably towards the end of summer as most of the year it’s usually a lot greener than that. Still beautiful though of course

It’s light till 10 pm in June /July. Yes we get days with completely blue skies. Sometimes 😂

Today is December 21st, we get approx 6 hours of very pot daylight, in June daylight is from 4am to almost 11pm and the few hours in between it doesn’t really get dark

The Ridgeway is beautiful.

I would think it’s more natural to sleep with the curtains open. In terms of being in sync with the seasons. At least in spring, summer and autumn I do. I found it funny as a gardener when I read somewhere that the gardener Monty Don does this too and the gardener Beth Chatto did.

Be careful, if you drink too much water your fluid balance with be off, and you could go into shock.

17 bucks for a coffee from Starbucks, NO it's the UK, that was about £2.70 or so

Most of Britain was forested until Iron age tribes cleared the trees to create farmland, grazing for cattle or ploughed for crops. By the time the Romans arrived in the 1st century most of the land had been cleared. It is therefore a man made landscape almost everywhere. The exceptions are the wild uplands or marshy areas unsuitable for farming. The lake district has ben specialised for sheep grazing.

In the summer, it stays light until about 10 pm.

It's incredible he never needs to shit!

To quote the farmer near my parents house "Grass is crops too, so get the fuck off my field before I call the frigging police"

I've driven sections of the Ridgeway, most of it now sadly barred to motor vehicles, which means those of limited ability are sadly also barred, just so the walkers can have it all to themselves.

Americans can be so funny with words - in a nice way! Your 'nonchantness' was kinda cute. The proper word was/is nonchalance 😊😊😊

There's no one start to the river Thames, there multiple small streams leading into the estuary that is the beginning of the Thames, if he means where are the streams that start it, there in Kemble in the Cotswolds

Yes it’s all good farmland

@conor farming and the industrial revolution caused a lot of deforestation in the uk and Ireland. Only Iceland is more deforested in Europe and that was because of the Vikings. The UK and Ireland was once covered in forests and had wolves, bears, bore, wild cats etc similar to mainland Europe

Best find was years ago I found a apricot tree in Bradford also lots of wild apples trees.

You'll notice how much browner are the fields during such dry weather. Connor likes English greenery, and to maintain that, you must have a certain amount of rain. You can't have it both ways - take your pick.

Ticks are a real problem in our high moorland areas, particularly when you walk through bracken. You tend to need sheep and deer around to get them. I have used little plastic hooks you can buy which are just the right size to remove them. He shouldn't have had much problem on the Ridgeway. Way back it was much easier to walk along the hill-ridges than in the more wooded and muddier valleys, which is why these trackways exist.

Mate at peak summer sun is up by 5am and sets close to 10 pm- I've had nights out and walked home and the sky was always dark navy blue not night time and sun rising when I was getting home

Millennia ago the whole of Britain was covered in Forest.

Yes Connor it's a weeping willow tree.

most of the land you see in the vid ,has been altered by land owners like cutting down trees for farm land , one ploace where you can see mans handywork is the Norfolk Broads , one thoght to be natrual , but since found out to be the reslt of centries of humans digging up the peat for fual

The main crops will be wheat and barley

You've got a lovely personality and I like listening to you talk

Those amazing fish and chips are just fish and chips to us.

loved it connor i used to live within 5 miles of the ridgeway, worked near ivinghoe beacon and spent many a lovely day walking along the section near wendover but was familiar with the path from the thames to ivinghoe beacon,brought back many memories