To go independently, choose a good-weather day, and arm yourself with OS of Ireland Discovery map 31.

Rest of the fest: the Four Days Walks (July 2-5) is organised a bit like a music festival: you can register for all four days (£35.39, under-18s £13.27) or only for one. The weekend has a holiday atmosphere, with craic abundantly available at the Guinness-fuelled festival ceilidh. Call 00 353 94 902 4102 or visit castlebar4dayswalks.com

CALSTONE COOMBES

Wessex Walking Weekend

Times Walks: the 100 best walks in the UK

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• Times Walks: Portesham and Hardy’s Monument, Dorset

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Join Times writers on walks in the British countryside - there's four to choose from; in Llangollen, Kent, Windsor and Aldeburgh

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• Walkers are spoilt for choice in Scotland

• Go walking: take a detour from daily life

Wander the Wiltshire Downs this month, and you may stumble on a rather startling sight: what looks like an Argentine gaucho, rounding up cattle. The gaucho is actually a farmer, Andrew Brown, and his stable of 20 Criollo steeds have been imported from the pampas to chomp down the spikier grasses that threaten the orchids of Calstone Coombes.

Calstone is a very special bit of scenery, and on Saturday’s picnic walk with the warden Keith Steggle (4 miles, June 27), part of the National Trust’s Wessex Walking Weekend, you’ll discover why. It begins in Cherhill village, climbing south on the White Horse Trail to the blustery pinnacle of the downs. Up ahead, the Cherhill White Horse canters across its hillside, freshly groomed this spring with sparkly chalk.

Commanding the summit is Oldbury Castle, a bronze-age hill fort — breathe in the views across the downs, then gambol down the other side into the coombes, an unearthly maze of intimate green valleys, folding in upon themselves. The route back retraces your steps to the fort.

To go independently, take OS Explorer 157.

Rest of the fest: next weekend’s festival features a dozen walks, including two red-squirrel hunts on Brownsea Island (June 27 & 28) and a picnic evening at Prior Park in Bath (both June 27). Call 01672 539167 or visit nationaltrust.org.uk/walkwessex.

RANSCOMBE FARM

North Kent Walking Festival

Hairy mallow, ground pine, broad-leaved cudweed — they may not sound terribly glamorous, but these botanical rarities have turned Ranscombe Farm into plant-hunting heaven. Smuggled away in the North Downs, Ranscombe has been declared Britain’s first “plantlife reserve” for endangered flora, and in June it becomes a carnival of eye-catching wildflowers.