The Peneda-Gerês Trail Adventure race in Portugal is a wild route through river crossings, boulder fields and people’s gardens. When there is so much to discover, why do we follow trails and lose our sense of adventure?

If I were given 1,000 years to walk this earth, I still wouldn’t have discovered some of the places I visited this week at the Peneda-Gerês Trail Adventure race in northern Portugal.

The race was organised by Carlos Sa, a Portuguese ultra-runner and handsome chap. At times, it felt as though Carlos had got lost on a long training run – dropping a flag every 10 to 20 metres so that he could find his way back – and then we had the pleasure of following his wild route through some of the roughest terrain the mountains of the Peneda-Gerês National Park has to offer.

That may sound like a bad thing, but it most definitely was not. The race had a feeling of exploration – trails seemed to have been especially cleared just for the day, or we passed through areas that weren’t trails at all until Carlos decided that they were.

In Britain, we are used to set trails for most of our off-road adventures, except for fell running and mountain marathons where you are free to find your own “directissima” route. But this was a route chosen for us that took in waterfalls, river crossings, huge boulder fields and people’s gardens in remote villages.

One of the ‘trails’ we followed on the Peneda-Gerês Trail Adventure race. Photograph: Matias Novo/ Gerês Adventure race

The consensus, particularly in running, is that we have to pay a lot of money and do something really magnificent for it be to a real adventure. But adventure needn’t be anything different from what it was when you were a small child running about in the woods, exploring what nature had to offer and ignoring the paths you were supposed to take.

I love nothing more than seeing a hill and trying to go directly up it, just as I imagine early explorers would have done in unknown regions of the world. Just because there is now a trail, why do we always feel the urge to follow it? Adventure starts at your own front door and it doesn’t even have to be in the wilderness– a city can be yours to explore as well. Getting lost shouldn’t be a problem: it should be an opportunity.

So, next time you lace up those shoes for a run, why don’t you just explore: run somewhere new and get off the beaten track, just like Carlos did. Who knows, you might just discover an adventure of your own.

Robbie Britton blogs at robbiebritton.co.uk