Seven years of adventures, wild camping and cycling around many of Southern England's most famous trails, have reached their fruition in Stair-Rods and Stars, a humorous paperback travel narrative, written in reverse chronology, giving the feel of a gradually unfolding adventure.

Adam Colton, who visited every mainland lighthouse in England and Wales with his father for his 2003 book England and Wales in a Flash, began the jaunts with the aim of filling in the gaps between the coasts he'd previously visited. He discovered a network of canals, disused railway lines and ancient trails from The Ridgeway to the Shaftesbury Drovers Path while ticking off his list of 'must see' features, from Glastonbury Tor to Cheddar Gorge to Avebury Henge.

The book pieces together snippets of historical knowledge with the kind of musings that can be conjured up while sleeping in hedges, heartily eulogising the therapeutic qualities of getting back to nature in a way that may just prompt the reader to do something equally wacky.