Untamed heather, fragrant white blossoms and rabbits darting among the daffodils. Sumitra Senapaty follows the path less taken and walks through a culture in English countryside

It’s as if one were walking through the illustrations of a children’s book. Brightly coloured daffodils and primroses sparkle on the landscape and decorate adorable little cottages.... I almost expect Wonderland’s Alice or Winnie the Pooh to emerge.

This couldn’t possibly be real. But it is. I am walking the Cotswolds – as indeed, I have been in many another area of the British Isles – by the most winding, wayward and idiosyncratic of routes. And I can’t think of any better way, as it gives you a chance to peer through gaps in the hedges, to discover all the secret places of the Cotswolds, unnoticed by the speeding traveller.

To the English, walking long distances is a matter of course; for me, it is the appeal of walking through a culture: climbing over a 6,000-year-old dry stone wall one morning and stopping at a cheese monger’s shop that afternoon. The thatched-roof cottages with roses and beech forests conjure up images of hobbits and sorcerers, quite fittingly since J.R.R. Tolkien lived nearby and was, in part, inspired by this landscape while writing The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I love the physicalness of it. When I reach the top of a hill, even if I’m gasping for breath, I feel so powerful. And even more enjoyable to me is the sight of the sheep.... Makes me want to ‘stop and stare’, to stand beside a murmuring brook, to sit on a summer’s day at a table outside the pub, watching the village and soaking in flowery scents. The Cotswolds is giving me a lot of quiet pleasure.

Sometimes, country folk make you feel as if your ‘many’ miles are no great accomplishment. I hear of an 80-year-old woman who has done the 200-mile Coast-to-Coast path, and I get to meet an elderly gentleman who has plans to walk from a remote corner of England to the remotest spot in Scotland. And now, at home, I miss it: the around-the-corner surprises of the path, the fresh air that smells of sheep and hawthorn, the daffodils, the farmers, the cheerful voices of the B&B landlords and ladies. I find myself wishing that life should have little white dots to mark the way.