Walking in the countryside is such a natural action that it is easy to take it for granted – until you are prevented. In her first book, Wanderers: A History of Women Walking, Kerri Andrews explored the challenges faced by women walkers, offering an alternative to the usual male ‘explorer’ narrative.

Now, in Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom, Andrews confronts the even greater barriers that stand between mothers and walking the land. The book melds personal memoir, as she grapples with new motherhood, and gorgeous landscape writing, much of it based in Scotland.

We join Andrews as she tentatively rediscovers walking after becoming a mother, with chapters titled ‘Body’, ‘Mind’, ‘Anger’, ‘Self’, ‘Ambition’ and ‘Hope’. ‘Anger’ is packed full of simmering rage, surely one of the biggest motherhood taboos. The chapter opens with a description of Andrews’ injured, post-birth body, “ripped open by the passage of a ten-pound eight-ounce wrecking ball through its deepest and most intimate parts”. As the baby cries, she feels pure animal anguish: “a fox writhing in its den, surrounded by hounds at every turn”.

‘Self’ brings a stark reminder of the visceral horror of birthing that even those who had a broadly positive experience will recognise. Then Andrews describes the feeling of being a mother reduced after birth to dairy cow, manhandled into learning a new, painful skill, while the father is sent home to a night of unbroken sleep.

The wrongness of our society’s way of treating women is laid bare. Andrews is back in hospital only four days post birth, crushed by anxiety that led to postnatal depression. This is not unique. Andrews details recent findings showing that maternal death rates are increasing, driven by a substantial rise in pregnant or postpartum women dying by suicide.

Woven throughout are the intense and emotional stories of other mother-walkers. Some are our foremothers, bringing unheard walking histories, including letters from Mary Wollstonecraft and Dorothy Wordsworth. Other accounts are contemporary, as Andrews chats with women who join her to walk. What is shocking is how the themes reverberate through the centuries. Motherhood still constrains women to the domestic and removes the freedom to walk, whether the year is 1787 or 2025.

The reasons are complex and explored in depth with a chatty, confidential voice, as if walking side by side with the reader. Some are societal: for example, women are still usually the main carers. Some are physical, as the ravages of pregnancy and childbirth often make bodies weaker and less fit, with little support or time to regain strength. Andrews explores in depth the mental aspects – the loss of identity, the fatigue and increased anxiety – that are common side-effects of a process that is meant to be nat-ural yet can often feel anything but.

So many adventure memoirs are about the incredible. The seemingly ‘beyond reach’ physical achievement of mountains scaled, or rainforests explored, somehow obtained with suffering and grit. This book brings welcome compassion for the frailties of the human body, especially one that has endured pregnancy and birth. Sometimes, stopping before the end, as Andrews does on the West Highland Way, and being proud anyway is as much of an achievement as carrying on just for the sake of the challenge. This makes it a relevant read for anyone whose body is ageing, or who might be experiencing chronic illness, disability or lack of dedicated attention.

A final note made me chuckle. Amongst the usual thank-yous in the acknowledgements section, Andrews details the cost of the childcare that enabled her to write the book. It is an eye-watering sum that is entirely normal, and not easily recouped by book sales. That is what mothers who work, who write or walk, are up against.

Despite the pain and restriction, there is joy and freedom to be found in walking and parenting. Andrews has laid out an invitation that will leave you desperate to step outside.

Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom by Kerri Andrews. Elliott & Thompson, 2025. ISBN: 9781783968428

Kate Blincoe is a Nature writer, Nature lover and mother. Her award-winning story was published in The Curae: An Anthology from the Inaugural Curae Prize (Renard Press).