Theatre Royal 200 for 200 - Final Day

I thought this was pretty amazing. As part of the celebrations of the Bury St. Edmunds Theatre Royal's 200th anniversary, Tony Kelly and Dawn Roberts conceived a walk of 200 miles (and a bit more) over 10 days, called 200 for 200. I met them when I went on one of their practice walks, from Clare to Sicklesmere, in February and found them delightful walking company. But what with work, family commitments and the tricky logistics of doing parts of the walk, in the end, I was able to do only the last day. But I was glad to be able take part, even if only for one day.

This was our route on the final day.

Cleverly constructed to allow people who weren't long-distance walkers to join in, the final day's 18 mile (and a bit) route was in 2 parts, with an option of people joining the trail from Knettishall Heath to the Theatre Royal at the halfway point in Ixworth. Several people kindly offered to drive people to the start at Knettishall Heath and about 20 of us assembled at the Theatre Royal at 7 a.m. to get lifts. Thanks Marcus and Sophie for getting me to the start!

Here are a few of my photos.

Before we began we had to pose for Julia to take a group photo.

But Dawn was missing, so we had to do it again.

See if you can spot me in the photo on the Theatre Royal blog!

Then we were off.

We were soon on the Icknield Way.

I always love to see the ponies on the heath.

Throughout our walk we were supported by Steve with his supply of water and nibbles, as he had done though the whole 200... and, he said, driving more than 500 miles in the process.

We were in Breckland and we had sight of some typical Breckland treeline.

At Bardwell we stopped at The Dun Cow for a welcome cup of coffee.... I resisted the temptation to have a beer so early in the day!

Steve, of course, was there for people to stock up on snacks as we moved on.

We saw plenty of nice houses.

It wasn't long before we arrived in Ixworth.

Arriving at 11:15, we had made pretty good time, but now we had to wait for the others to join us. Just before 12, Tony addressed us all with details of the rest of the route.

And, much swelled in numbers, we set off for the second leg.

We had to cross the busy A143. But Steve was on hand to help us across by holding back the traffic.

We had a glimpse of Pakenham windmill.

Although a lot of or walking was on roads, we had very little traffic to worry about. We had to make room for this, though.

We arrived at Pakenham Watermill.

"Hold on", said Dawn. We needed to pause let some people catch-up - we had left Ixworth before everyone had got there to do the second part of the walk. By now several more of the Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers group had joined. I enjoyed catching up with some of them along the way.

That gave us a chance to admire the topiary from Millers Meadow Topiary Art Designs next door.

We carried on through the winding Pakenham village...

 ..and then had a pleasant piece of off-road walking behind Thurston Grange.

We were on home territory for me now walking to Rougham Airfield and along a rather familiar part of the Cycle route 51. Passing within 200m of my house, and past where I had parked my car at the end of Shakers Lane, we were soon close to journey's end. We decided to wait for Dawn and Tony and give them a bit of a welcome.

When we got to the theatre, there was Julia to take Dawn and Tony's photo arriving.

The food and drink at the reception was  much appreciated.

 
So well done Dawn and Tony, and the others who completed the full route. Read all about it here in the East Anglian Daily Times. Sadly I missed the final photo shoot as I'd already hobbled off back to my car and home. It was  a lovely day's walk and, I thought, a pretty good turnout. Thanks to all who supported it.

You can see more of my photos here on Flickr and for more details of the route see my log on MapMyWalk.