Valais Wanders Sheep Trekking

Sheep trekking in Northumberland sounds like the sort of thing you'd either find completely daft or absolutely brilliant - turns out it's very much the latter. Valais Wanders runs guided walks where you actually herd a small flock of woolly Swiss sheep across the rolling hills around Coldstream, which is genuinely unlike anything else on offer round these parts.

The experience itself is refreshingly low-tech. You're given a shepherd's crook, basic instructions, and then sent off across moorland and farmland with these surprisingly amenable animals. They're far more cooperative than you'd expect, though they do have their own opinions about which direction to head. It's physical enough to feel like proper exercise but not so demanding that young kids or older walkers get left behind. Most sessions run a couple of hours, which is the sweet spot before anyone gets genuinely tired or the novelty wears thin.

This works particularly well if you're basing yourself at Coldstream Holiday Park or Highburn House Caravan Park for a wider Northumberland break. It's the sort of activity that breaks up a week of castle-visiting and countryside drives. Families with children aged seven upwards tend to get the most from it - anything younger and the attention span versus physical stamina equation gets tricky. Solo walkers and couples who fancy something different also lap it up.

The Borders landscape around here is genuinely lovely, rolling rather than dramatic, which makes for comfortable trekking. Check ahead for availability and weather conditions - these things don't run in heavy rain.