Ramblers Roadshow

 Today I went to a Ramblers Volunteers Roadshow. It was held at Granta Park, just south of Cambridge.

The facilities were very impressive and we were well looked after with breakfast, lunch and drink break refreshments all provided.

There was a plenary session to start with where we were brought up to speed on what the Ramblers organisation is doing and plans for the next year or so.

We then split into groups doing different workshops. Some of my fellow members of the Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers attended the First Aid and Navigation skills courses, whereas I did the Walk Leaders workshop. along with 11 others. Our workshop was led by Rebecca, who, among other thngs, is the Ramblers Safeguarding Officer as well as being part of the Volunteer support team.

We had a very interesting morning discussing all aspects of being a walk leader. It was good to hear about other ramblers groups and their experiences.

In the afternoon Ed and Rebecca led half our group each on a short walk. Here is Rebecca briefing us.

Later described as "The worst walk you will ever lead", we did a little tour of the Granta Park campus taking it in turns to be the walk leader. Every now and then Rebecca handed out little slips of instructions to people in the group to role-play some of the situations a leader might have to deal with.

When it was my turn, I had to deal with someone who found our pace too fast (we can't have been walking more than 1 1/2 mph to start with!), someone who had to be stopped from getting too close to the lake and in danger of falling in, and then, to cap it all, someone who had a heart attack. Crikey!

I also had to take my turn at the role-play, having to have a strop and refuse to walk any further and stopping to (pretend to!) have a wee, get left behind and get lost.

It was all very entertaining.

So thanks to Rebecca and the rest of the team for a great roadshop and workshop and to my fellow workshop members for sharing their experiences.

Highly recommended!

Jumbo Blogging Day

Times Cryptic Jumbo No 1387 - 15th June

Today's Jumbo is a bit harder than usual, I think, with a number of quite chewy bits that got me grinding my teeth. Some devious definitions and tricky wordplay in places held me up at times, but added to the enjoyment when the pennies finally dropped. About 70 minutes in total.Thanks setter. How did you all get on?

( Read all about it.... )

Knettishall Heath and Hopton Walk

What a lovely walk! Perfect walking conditions and convivial group of walkers. I was standing in as walk leader for Joyce while she was on holiday and I pinched and embellished a Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers walk from last year for today. Thanks Chris for the inspiration!

This is what the walk listing (should have) said.

"Friday 28th June. Let’s have a proper Breckland walk. We will visit the Norfolk side of the boundary with Suffolk along the river Little Ouse, taking in some of the Angles Way, seeing where Princess Diana went to school and stopping off at The Well in Hopton for refreshments (great value). We will return via Knettishall Airfield and through Knettishall Heath where we will hopefully encounter the Exmoor ponies. The total distance will be about 9 miles. Meet at the main Car Park at Knettishall Heath, IP22 2TQ (suggested donations of £1 per car for parking) to start walking at 10am or, alternatively, at Skyliner Sports centre, Rougham Tower Avenue, Bury Saint Edmunds IP32 7QB for car share at 9:15am."

This was our route....

Here are a few photos.

We joined the Angles Way just after crossing the River Little Ouse.  Passing Riddlesworth Park Glamping site...

...we soon reached Riddlesworth Hall School, which Princess Diana attended between 1970 and 1974. Read more about her time there here.

 

Not the Exmoor ponies, but we saw these in a field along the way,

We passed the Old School House for children of workers on the estate.

We came to Gasthorpe village, from where Bill Gates family originated. It has a working public telephone box!

 We crossed back into Suffolk by Little Lodge Farm, recently on sale for about £9.5m

Passing Hopton Fen we climbed up into Hopton village, where we had our half way stop the the delightful little coffee shop, The Well.

Here I took our group photo of the day...

Leaving the Angles Way we set off back to Knettishall Heath. We came via this nice boardwalk through a wood.

We passed Market Weston Fen before climbing up to Knettishall Airfield, home in the second world war, as described here, to 500 Flying Fortress air crews. We walked around the perimeter concrete path...

...and around the lovely memorial line of tress planted along the original main runway....

...to reach the Knettishall Heath nature reserve once again.

We didn't head straight for the car park. Instead we walked through some of the woodland...

...and heathland...

...and along the river...

...where we saw plenty of fish, before we returned to the main car park.

We never met the ponies, so here is a photo of them from a previous walk here.

You can see more of my photos here on Flickr and more details of our route here on MapMyWalk.

Beyton 5 Village Walk

This was a walk I'd wanted to share with others for a while. Joyce asked me if I would like to lead a walk this week, so I said yes. This is how it was advertised...

Monday 24th June. The plan is to explore five Suffolk villages, with lovely countryside and woodland walking in between, for approximately 9 miles. Our route will encompass Beyton, Rougham, Bradfield St. George, Hesset and Drinkstone. We will meet at Beyton Church, Church Rd, Beyton, IP30 9AL car park to start walking at 10am. There are no refreshment facilities en-route but we will stop for a drinks/snack break so bring something with you. After the walk, for those who are interested, we will retire to The Bear for post-amble sustenance.

This was our route....

There were 6 of us on the walk and we took it fairly leisurely as it was rather warm and very humid. Here we are (well everyone except me behind the camera) in Bradfield St. George.

Across the road we saw this....

..but no, Carolyn didn't have room in her bag to take some home. We also saw this contradictorily named house ...

...and plenty of these flowers in the woods just coming out. I think they may be a type of Fragrant Orchid, but I could be wrong.

A few of the houses in Hesset...

The path to Drinkstone as it was in March...

And here is our walk's start and end - Beyton Church.

You can see more details of our route here. No album from today, but see a lot more of route with my photos from my March recce of the walk starting in Hesset here on Flickr. How the grass has grown since then!

I was pleased to get round without making a wrong turn, or losing any walkers along the way. Thanks to all for their company

Orwell Challenge Walk 2019

It was time for the Orwell Challenge again. Last year I did the 25 miles, (read about it here) and I hadn't walked that far again since. But today I was back. Would I do the full distance again? I wasn't sure.

This was the route.

I arrived a bit earlier this year, but there was still a queue. Even so I was on my way before 7:30 a.m. I saw Cath from the Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers and Barry from Joyce's walking group behind me in the queue, but I wanted to walk at my own pace, so I didn't wait for them and walked on my own. As the sun rose higher it got warmer so I stopped at every checkpoint for a drink and to refill my water bottle.

After almost exactly 2 1/2 hours I was at the 4th Checkpoint and the 9 mile mark... and the decision whether to do the 19 or the full 25 miles. Yet again I chose the longer route, although by 22 miles I was wondering if I shouldn't have when I was due to lead a 9 mile walk tomorrow.

Most of the time, up until the final section where the 3 routes merged, I was pretty much alone, although there was one couple who were walking just a bit faster than me who stopped a bit longer at the checkpoints and then overtook me before we got the next one a few times. In the end they finished just in front of me.

Here are a few of my photos.

Poppies by the car park.

Queuing to register

Our first sight of the Orwell river.

We walked under the Orwell bridge. That's the Suffolk Food Hall in the distance, last visited on the Bluebell Walk.

The tide was out.

Where is everyone?

This was a bit of an unexpected sight along the river shore - somebody had dropped a jelly baby.

A lot of the river shore walking was on seaweed - rather slippery at times and a bit pongy too. I was glad when we got to the end of that.

But the views along the way were lovely. You can see the cranes of Felixstowe in the distance here.

Checkpoint 4, Fishponds at 9 miles and decision time. It was still only 10 a.m., so the 25 miles it was...

The next checkpoint, Cordys, was just over half-way and the furthest distance from a previous checkpoint at nearly 4 miles from Fishponds. A big chunk of that was the stony path up from Trimley Marshes,  which was a bit hard on the feet.

Apart from the repeated stretch between the two halves of the figure of 8 walk, the rest of the route was inland. I paused to photograph these foxgloves.

The most picturesque checkpoint was the penultimate one, Decoy, by the gamekeepers cottage.

And, yeah! I made it! About 10 minutes quicker than last year despite stopping for longer at the checkpoints.

Here are my route card and certificate to show I did it.

 

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

P.S. I caught up with Barry via email to ask how he got on and found he had finished just a few minutes behind me, having done the full 25 when previously he had not done more than 16 miles. Well done Barry!