Daffodil Dawdle

This was a new walking adventure for me... joining a Long Distance Walkers Association event, the Daffodil Dawdle. It was a bit of an early start as the clocks had just gone forward, to meet Jane, my fellow Bury St. Edmunds Rambler and Joyce's Weekly Walks walker, and drive to the start in Stradbroke for registration at 7:30 a.m. and an 8 a.m. start.

Jane and I were doing the short distance of 18 miles, although there was an option to do a full 26.1 mile distance. This was our route.

Not many photos as we weren't really dawdling, with all of miles 2 to 6 at an average of less than 17 minutes a mile, and the rest not much slower. I was glad of the stop at the checkpoints in Weybread and then Hoxne (with some sandwiches) and the yummy soup at the end.

We registered in the village hall.

There was quite a crowd of us ready for the 8:00 start.

 Off we went through Stradbroke.

This cherry blossom was very fulsome, even though it had lost a lot of petals.

At the first checkpoint we were checked in by Chelle sounding out our numbers to be ticked off in best bingo-caller style. I'll be seeing her again in Mallorca later this week.

 The daffodil sign highlighted the gate we had to climb over.

We joined the Angles Way for part of our route, which was very pleasant.

We passed  Brockdish Church. It may have been a 'dawdle', but visiting churches along the way wasn't on the agenda.

Eventually we came to cross the Waveney and meet the start of the Mid-Suffolk footpath I had walked over a couple walks recently (Part1 and Part2). And today I got to walk the bit we had missed by starting at Hoxne village hall.

 I do love walking beside a river.

 We entered Hoxne

...and reached out 13 miles checkpoint at the village hall. This time I didn't forget to look for the stone with the inscription about King Edmund.

Here we paused for about 20 minutes for some welcome refreshments and a bite to eat.

Now we had (nominally) only 5 miles left to go. We had managed the first 13 miles in just under 4 hours, so had plenty of time to get back. We had lost the 26 milers now, who were on a different route, and we were rather spread out. No more just following those in front, I used the map I had made from the GPX file we were sent a link to and Jane kept track of where we were and what turns we had to make for the excellent set of instructions we were provided with. So we had a bit more time to enjoy the flowers.

We nearly went wrong just before Thorpe Hall - we could see a couple in front of us who had stayed on the track rather than going straight on where it turned left. Fortunately Jane realised and we got to see Thorpe Hall

On the home stretch now, we walked along a drive lined by daffodils.

 ..and into Stradbroke

and back to the Community Centre.

Just before we got there we met Chris Flood, looking for her husband arriving and got photographed for the Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers facebook group. We checked in and had some welcome soup, bread and tea before collecting our certificates.

And here is mine. I hadn't realised we were being timed!

Well the route was actually 18.75 miles and, with our little detours, we actually did nearly 19, and we did stop twice so were walking for less than 6 hours. Not as fast as most, but I thought we did pretty well.

You can find more details of our route on my MapMyWalk log here.

Thanks to all the organisers, caterers and marshals for making it work and be such a fun event, and Jane for keeping me company (and on track) all the way round. Will I do another one? Well I was glad I only did the 18 miles, even though I felt I could keep going at the end, and the pace was just a bit quick for me at times. But it was good fun and a beautiful walk. We'll see.