No time to do this elegantly as this is my first time working in Linux. Here’s a screenshot of the new White Cliffs walk profile as it stands now, still in development. The big change will be the addition of online ordering.

Sample screenshot of new White Cliffs walk profile

I’ve uploaded the new calendar of walks for this year. You can now book a walk anytime up to February 2011. There are a few new routes added, and more to come, which I will be highlighting in posts over the next few days.

One notable addition is the Alice in Wonderland walk, which I’m putting together to commemorate the release of the upcoming Walt Disney Studios film, due out this Friday. The walk is scheduled for Sat/Sun March 6th and 7th. Read about it here.

I’m replacing the hand-made static route maps on the walk profiles with Google Maps. It’s taking me a while to encode each route but they should all be done soon. See the profile pages for

The White Cliffs of the Seven Sisters
King Beorthwulf’s Gardens (Benington Lordship)
Bodiam Castle
Fortress of the Black Swans (Leeds Castle)

as examples.

Benefits of this approach:

a) you can zoom out to see where the route is relative to London and the rest of the country
b) you can zoom in to see details of the route
c) you can switch from “Terrain” view to “Satellite” view and get a highly detailed aerial image of the route

Once I start getting the hang of the Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface), I ought to be able to add nifty new features like pop-out photos showing on-the-ground views from selected points along the route of a walk.

— DW

Over the next few days you’ll see some changes to the site as I prepare ECW for the 2008 season. I’ll be posting a handful of new photos from recent walks, and updating the calendar. Stay tuned …

David

ps Yoshi and Martin, can you send me some of your photos you took on our walk yesterday?

My good friend Sue is helping to promote English Country Walks in the US, with these classy bumper magnets. Email me if you want one too. Apparently, they’ll stick to anything except Saturns (Saturns are plastic cars).

First two are version 1, this one is the more refined version 2. Looking sharp now.

Thanks Sue!

— DW

Coding up a calendar for the website. I want to make it easier to select walks by date – at the moment you have to pick a walk, then check which dates that walk is available.

Ideally, you ought to be able to view all of the walk dates at a glance, preferably on the home page.

I’ll see what I can do …