Brandon Country Park Walk

Laura was home again for a couple of days before heading back to Portsmouth. It was a non-working day for me today, so a chance to go out for a walk together. But the weather first thing was not promising. It was forecast to clear up later so we decided to head to Brandon Country Park, where the sandy soil would mean we didn't get too much mud. So off we went.

We decided to do the Blue Walk, which we hadn't done before, as shown on this sign.

We had air cover while doing it.

This was our route...

Um. Not quite as expected. We followed the blue arrows like this...

...and soon found ourselves back where we started!

Try again. These were the signs we were looking for. Yes it is shown as the Blue Walk on the map, but it's actually also the Poacher Cycle trail! As it happened were passed by only a couple of solitary riders on our walk.

Here are some more photos.

This is what we should have been following.

Dawn and Laura were wrapped up for the cold, but none of us had waterproofs on. Luckily we only had light rain for a while.

I was trying out my new boots for a second time.

We passed plenty of signs for the Sled Dog Training area.

We stopped to look at the flint mining area.

Laura was on the look-out for fungi.

Past the flint mine there was plenty of flint in the path.

We also saw some lichen in flower.

 We returned through the trees...

 ..to the lake...

...where we saw a colourful mandarin duck.

...and some nice bulrushes.

After completing our route we took a look throught the Walled Garden.

This fennel is impressive.

Here's the bug hotel.

There were plenty of quince fruit.

Anyone for some jelly?

You can see more of my pictures here on Flickr and more details of our route here on MapMyWalk,