St. Ives and the Hemingsfords Walk

We were heading for a day out by the Great Ouse river.

"This Saturday, July 13th, is a lovely circular 7.5 mile walk around St Ives and The Hemingfords (including the Hemingfords Regatta). This walk is beautiful but obviously requires some investment time wise. I will be at St Ives Park n Ride car park (free) at 10.30am. The post code is PE27 4LG, Meadow Lane, St Ives. I will lead you through the fabulous town of St Ives to Houghton Mill for a coffee stop. Then onto the prettiest villages of Hemingford Abbots and Hemingford Grey. We will stop for our picnic lunch here, on the river bank, and watch some boat races before we head back through the meadow back to St Ives and along the River Ouse. Joining me are Peter, Ann, John, Tina and their friends/family." ...said the invite from Joyce. And  yes, Dawn and William came along with me.

Of course we had been to St.Ives as a group before on our never-ending road walk in February, but It was nice to revisit and go beyond the town. This was our route, although, as you can see, I forgot to start my tracker until we got to the High St.

Here are a few of my photos....

We met in the Park and Ride car park at 10:30.

As we walked through St. Ives there were lots of cyclists, but we never found out what the event was.

At The Waits we admired the herb garden.

We thought this was meadowsweet but found it hard to see and read the board with the descriptions and pictures. I had to take a photo to read it properly later.

We were wrong. It is actually Roman Chamomile.

We searched for the rabbits on the Parish  Church door. Here they are...

We had a team photo on the bridge over to Holt Island....

...where we did the circular boardwalk.

 ...finding a dead hornet, or so we thought. Is it?

We continued along the river past this nice cottage...

...towards  Houghton Mill...

...where we stopped for coffee (and bacon sandwiches).

We stopped at the lock to see a boat try to go through it. But the gate in front of us wasn't fully closed, so they had a hard time until they discovered that the water was leaking out.

We walked through the lovely village of Hemingford Abbots.

and on towards Hemingford Grey and the Hemingfords Regatta.

We had our picnic here...

...including some Pimms from the beer tent, here being enjoyed by William...

...and watched some of the races.

The rubber dinghy racing was hilarious with some indifferent steering and a bit of argy-bargy.

These were the winners...

...while the other two boats were busy fighting each other.

Some of the houses and gardens and riverside views were rather impressive.

We annoyed the owner of this house by tapping the stripes to see if it was really a timber-framed building... no the timber-like stripes are artificial.

We passed a tree with a peacock in it. Can you see it?

Was this a hare on the Hemingford Grey meadow? I zoomed my camera as far as it would go. No it was a heron. It was a funny place for it to sit!

Back along the river...

...we returned to St. Ives and crossed the bridge before returning to the Park & Ride via the back streets.

I had to laugh at the Little Boy Blue picture...

...on the old police station.

Home, of course, of the Boys in Blue. Ha ha!

Well that was a lovely day out. Thanks Joyce for organising and leading it and to everyone else for the company.

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