Asked and answered
Twelve Questions
The ones that actually arrive. Several are answered no, and those tend to be the useful ones.
Twelve
Is any of this ground actually open to the public?
Most of it, and that is the point of the paper. Ground splits four ways rather than two: public and open, private and open, private and conditional, private and closed. Three of the four are reachable and the second one, private and open, is by far the largest.
The difference between private and closed takes the four apart. It is the page to read first if you have ever turned back at an open gate.
Why does the paper never name a place?
Two reasons, and the second matters more. A named place changes hours, changes hands and changes its mind, and a guide that named it would be wrong inside a year. And we have no standing to publish somebody else's access arrangements as though we spoke for them.
So every piece is about a kind of ground. What we can tell you precisely is what to look at, what it costs in conduct, and what going wrong looks like. The paper sets out the four things this publication will not do.
How do I know I am allowed if there is no sign?
Look at four things, in order: the surface, the hinge on the gate, where the mowing stops, and whether anybody else is casually on it. Ground built for people looks built for people, and a hinge that has not moved in a decade is not a decision anybody is making today.
How to tell if you are allowed is the whole method, and it takes about ten seconds once you have used it twice.
What happens if I get it wrong?
Somebody asks what you are looking for. That has been the entire consequence every time in three years, and the true answer, said plainly, ends the conversation.
Being asked to leave means leaving, at once and without discussion. It does not mean you did something wrong; it means the arrangement was not what you thought. Nothing in this paper is an argument to use against the person asking.
Why are the published hours never right?
Because a board at a gate is repainted in four minutes and a website needs the person who has the login, and at a small institution that is one person who is not there today. The listing sites are worse and some have been wrong for years.
The error runs one way: published hours are the hours a place used to keep. What a posted hour actually means has the three clocks, and the short version is to telephone the number painted on the board.
Do I really have to telephone?
For anything a day is being built around, yes. Thirty seconds against a locked gate is not a close call, and we make the call before every piece in this paper.
For ground in the ask first band the call is not a courtesy, it is the entire mechanism. Asking well has the four sentences to say and the things not to say.
Is the fare search a booking site, then?
Not ours. The search on the front page is run by an outside booking service. Any booking and any payment happens with them and with whichever airline carries you, under their terms, and this paper is not a party to it.
We cannot see a booking, look one up, change one or refund anything. If something goes wrong with a booking, the service that took it is the only party who can help.
Do you make money if I use it?
Possibly, and it is stated in four places on this site for that reason. If a booking follows a search that started here, the service may pay this paper a commission out of its own margin.
The fare you are quoted is the same either way. There is no version of that form that shows a different number depending on whether we are paid. The disclaimer puts it formally.
Why does a paper about walking carry a fare search at all?
Because it is the honest answer to how this is funded, and the alternatives are worse: selling advertising against the pieces, taking money from anybody who owns the ground we write about, or turning readers into subscribers.
It sits on the front page, below the opening, deliberately. It is not inside the pieces, not in the header and not in the footer, and no reader has to get past it to read anything.
Are there any reviews or ratings?
No, and there will not be until somebody sends us a real one. None have been sent, so there is no block, no stars and no count of anything.
An invented one would be worth less than the empty space it filled. The same goes for awards, badges and any number describing how many people read this.
Is any of this suitable with a pram, or with limited mobility?
It varies, and each piece says so at the end rather than in a general promise. Two of the eight are gravel, one of those is loose after rain, and one has a grass section a pram will not manage.
What we can never tell you is whether a place is right for a particular person on a particular day. We describe the surface, the gradient and the distance, and the judgment is yours.
The paper says August is different. How different?
Enough to rearrange everything. Opening moves earlier and closing moves earlier, staffed hours shrink before posted hours do, ask first ground gets harder because the person who says yes is away, and unshaded ground is not usable in the middle of the day.
The compensation is that everything is empty at seven in the morning. What changes in August has the two hours that work and how much water to carry.
Still not answered
Write to post@kestrelroads.com or telephone +1 (629) 355-2417 during Wednesday to Saturday, 10 am to 4:30 pm Central. Anything about a mistake on this site goes to copydesk@kestrelroads.com and gets read first.