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Tour de Peak District (long distance cycling route), Lake District, Peak District, Yorks Dales, Snowdonia, Cotswolds,
Rest of UK (generally hilly or coastal areas)
Polar Regions (Norway, Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica, South Georgia)
Southern Regions (Falkland Isles, Australia, New Zealand)
Kate Dakin is an award-winning freelance photographer and writer with particular interest in outdoor themes such as walking, cycling, landscape photography, adventure sports and travel.
(Her books are mostly published under the name Chiz Dakin).
Tour de Peak District
She has developed the challenging 3-5 day “Tour de Peak District” long distance cycling route (255km/150miles) taking the “nicest-available line nearest to the Peak District National Park boundary” for her Cycling in the Peak District guidebook. This is a gravel bike route which verges on MTB territory, but has a road-based alternative for the off-road sections where they get more challenging than Sustrans-like gravel tracks.
Writing
She has authored or contributed to 10 published books so far on themes from cycling to photography and video-making and is a member of Gritstone Publishing Co-operative, under whose imprint she will publish her next book. She writes walking routes on a regular basis for outdoors magazines, articles on outdoors themes for various other magazines and supplies images to publishers to illustrate both hers and other writers' work.
Photography
Kate specialises in walking and travel images and to a lesser extent other outdoors activities and wildlife images. Abroad, she has a good library of images from Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falkland Isles, Chile/Argentina (Patagonia) and Australia and Norway. Images can be licenced directly from Kate through her Photoshelter account (https://galleries.peakimages.co.uk/index).
Writing and photography commissions are always welcome!
Recent Publications (Books):
- OS Short Walks Made Easy: Greater Birmingham (Milestone Publications, 2026)
- OS Short Walks Made Easy: Bakewell and Dovedale (with OWPG member Steph Cooke), (Milestone Publications, 2025)
- Top 10 walks to Peak District Tea Shops (Northern Eye, 2019)
- One of the 50 authors who contributed to Cicerone’s 50 Years of Adventure (Cicerone Press, January 2019)
- Top 10 walks to Peak District Viewpoints (Northern Eye, Nov 2018)
- Top 10 walks in the Peak District (Northern Eye, Nov 2018 – co-authored with Dennis Kelsall)
- Main contributor to AA 50 walks in the Peak District (2018)
- Cycling in the Peak District 2nd Edition (Cicerone, July 2017)
- Cycling in the Cotswolds (Cicerone, April 2014, reprinted 2017)
- Outdoors Photography (with OWPG member Jon Sparks), (Cicerone, Aug 2011)
- Contributor to AA 50 walks in the Cotswolds (2013)
- Understanding HD Video (Ammonite, Oct 2012)
Recent Publications (Magazines):
- TGO Magazine –
- Mynydd y Dref (Sept 2026)
- The Nine Edges Route (May 2026)
- “Ed Byrne Learns Photography” (photography tuition)
- front cover image (April 2013),
- “Should I stay or Should I go” (Jan 2015),
- “Land of Ice and Spires – Patagonia” (Nov 2015)
- Trail Magazine – frequent contributor to walking routes since Jan 2010
- Active Travelller – Hut to Hut Across Slovenia (On Foot Special Summer 2016)
- Outdoor Enthusiast – front cover image (Nov/Dec 2014), Alpine Adventure (May-June 2016)
- Outdoor Focus – various articles from 2008 onwards
- Picture Business Review – front cover image
Awards:
- 2020 OWPG Digital Production
- 2011 Short-listed Outdoor Photographer of the Year (World Wildlife Category)
- 2008 OWPG Award for Excellence in Photography