Nowton and Sicklemere Walk

Well this was nice....

"This Friday March 13th, I'm going to pop in another walk from Dobbies Garden Centre, Bury. We will start walking at 10am but arrive earlier if you would like a coffee. We will visit the daffodils at Nowton Park and then I'm going to make the rest up on the day...expect around 11-12 miles of walking and a finish time of approx. 3.15pm back at Dobbies."

Nearly all familiar paths but a chance to see the daffodils at Nowton Park and compare with Chippenham Park and Wimpole Hall.

This was (approximately) our route. I think my tracker was only tracking intermittently for some reason. We walked a bit further than it said we did, according to Peter's more reliable one. If I was more diligent I would correct the route... but life's too short.

Here are some of my photos.

We met at Dobbies as planned and had a coffee. But where was Joyce? Hilariously she arrived at 10 thinking we were starting at 10:30. "That's not what you told us", we said.

Nicky had brought Bella along. Here she is enjoying herself with a big stick on Hardwick Heath.

We passed the pond...

...and some nice blossom.

And now we reached Nowton Park, where the daffodils were the best I've seen them for several years.

On the way out of the park we visited our old friend the panda.

We called in at the Friendly Loaf artisan bakery where I got a sausage roll that I ate while it was still warm. Yum.

Here is Peter enjoying his pastry.

We passed the alpaca farm at a distance.

Approaching Sicklemere.

We stopped at the Rushbrooke Arms for a drink and our packed lunches.

Thanks Squints for the 1/2 pint of Abbot.

It wasn't too cold to sit outside.

Heading onwards towards Rushbrooke Estate, we had a view down to Bury St. Edmunds of the cathedral and sugar factory.

We saw plenty of flowers other than daffodils today. Here are some pretty primroses.

As we walked through the estate, we found this fence looking a bit gnawed on.

Now we were on our way back to our start.

We saw a pair of hares in a field. Here's one of them haring off.

We were returning via the new bridleway. Although I had walked it since it was done up, I don't think any of the others had.

At the end of the bridleway, we did a last loop of detour via the Oak Community woodland and the back of the driving range, where we found lots of balls that had come over or through the fence.

There are plenty of signs of spring, but there are still some statuesque trees that are not yet in bloom giving a distinctive silhouette on the skyline.

We passed these nice dogs on our way back up Rushbrooke Lane.

And then we were back at Dobbies.

So thanks Joyce for a lovely walk (and everyone else for their company too). I think I can declare the Nowton Park daffodils are the most impressive I've seen this year, but that Wimpole Hall had the biggest diversity of species. although Chippenham Park was a close second. Anybody disagree?

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