Magog Down Circular Walk

When I go to work on my 2-days a week, I drive to the south of Cambridge and park at the Babraham Rd Park&Ride and get the bus to the railway station... or get off at the Hills Rd 6th Form College stop... or walk all the way to the office.

On the way to the Park&Ride, I pass over the Gog Magog hills, and have always wondered what a walk around there would be like. So I used the walk planner tool on the Ramblers site to design a walk and then did it today.

This was my route...

Pretty much as I had planned but with a bit more wandering round Wandlebury than I specified.

I started with a circuit round the Magog Down. What great views!

Down the footpath alongside the road to Stapleford, passing The Granary I headed to Babraham along the River Granta passing Babraham Church which, alas, was not open, and Babraham Hall, and then on into the village.

Lunch (and beer) at The George was good...

...and I headed towards the old roman road to walk back uphill to Wandlebury and across the road back to Magog Down. I heard lots of skylarks and saw lots of blossom and even butterflies (in February!).

Here is a  map of the Roman Road I joined.

I rather liked this map of the local paths, old and new...

A cyclist overtook me and we exchanged pleasantries. We agreed on what a wonderful day it was for walking and cycling.

This was "Ely View". A bit hazy with the Saharan sand pollution is my excuse for not being able to see Ely Cathedral. I think this is the appropriate direction!

And a view towards the City Centre, Oo! I can see my office!

 It's still February, remember, and there were some lovely snowdrops (again!).

Nearing the end there was  view of Addenbrookes...

And finally I was back at Magog Down.

The weather was amazingly mild and I was glad of my cap to avoid getting the top of my head sunburnt. A lovely walk of about 10 miles, yet, apart from at the start and end and pub in the middle, I saw scarcely anyone else.

Here is a slideshow of my photographs (Flash required)

You can also see my photos here on Flickr and more details of my route in my MapMyWalk log. A great walk. I would do it again. Does anyone want to join me?

Goal x 2

Yey. Yesterday I reached 2 personal goals... to walk enough steps to cover over 5 miles for 50 days in a row, and to walk 2000 miles in 10 months from when I started tracking them at the beginning of May last year.

New targets: reach 2500 miles and 5,000,000 steps in the year to the end of April.

Cambridge to St. Ives Walk

"So this Fridays walk is along the Guided Busway in Cambridge to St Ives. St Ives is a beautiful market town so I want us to arrive with a little vim and vigour to have a look around after a cuppa. The River Ouse and the meadows are gorgeous. The actual walk is ALL on tarmac. It's a bridleway that runs along the full length of the guided busway for 13 miles. The buses whizz along so it's not suitable for dogs (see attached screenshot). It is not the most exciting walk in the world. It is fen like and there isn't much on the horizon (no churches or windmills). However, in many ways it is lovely and very different. I wouldn't offer the walk if I didn't like it." , said the invite from Joyce. I think she rather undersold it. How many photos would I take along the way? Nick thought one would be enough, but I took over 100!

This Year's Chillis

As you may have noticed, we grow chillis. For many years, I have bought chilli seeds from the amazing Reimer Seeds in the USA as a bit of a cheat Christmas present for Dawn. They have over 2100 varieties and I like to try something new every year. As spring seems to be springing, it's time to get this year's seeds sown in the greenhouse... and that is what Dawn is doing right now. Here are this year's varieties:

Aurora Hot Peppers

Mucho Nacho Hot Peppers

Paprika Hot Peppers

Caribbean Mix Hot Peppers

 Cascabella Hot Peppers

We'll see how they do. I've still got a load of chilli sauces, pickled chillis, relish and paprika in the garage from last year... and even some from 2017!

Oxburgh Hall

Well the plan was to join the Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers on a walk from Coddenham. But William wasn't up on time and I wasn't really in the mood for a regimented walk with 40+ other people. So we had a more leisurely start and had a day out at Oxburgh instead. And were we in for a surprise!

We have National Trust family Membership, so its good to make use of it. We've been to Oxburgh Hall a few times, and it even featured in  my old blog, but we hadn't been for quite a while.

We arrived just before 11, when the ground and garden opened, and did a quick circumnavigation of the house and moat before visiting the snowdrop woods and doing a combination of the Woodland and Circular walks. This was our route...

Here are a few photos from that...

The equivalent picture on the National Trust site suffers from converging verticals. Not that mine is quite right!

I just love those chimneys.



The shadows are very striking.

And then we visited the winter/spring flowers. Look at this!

Spectacular!

Then we went on the walks and got some nice views.

Wow! I know we've had a great year for snowdrops and saw a great show on Joyce and Nick's Snowdrop walk on Saturday and my Cavenham walk the previous Friday, but this was, I think, the best display I've ever seen.

We were getting hungry so went to the local Bedingfield Arms for lunch. Luckily we beat the rush, and the food (and Humpty Dumpty Swallowtail Beer) was delicious!

Then we did the local walk described on the National Trust Oxburgh Hall  site. It was, to be frank, rather underwhelming compared to recent walks, although we did see the site of an old church, a farm that had turned into a paintball centre and lots of gulls around the fields that were being ploughed.

Here was our route...

 
And here are a few photos.

Oxburgh Church is interesting, but we couldn't go in as it is not open on weekdays at this time of year. The tower and spire blew down in 1948, destroying a lot of the church as it fell.

So, before we headed for home, we took a last peek at the flowers by the hall.

Here is a slideshow of my photos (Flash required)...

You can view them all here on Flickr, and see more details of our routes here and here on MapMyWalk. A very nice day out.. and a place to visit well worth remembering for this time of year in years to come!