Ipswich to Woodbridge Walk

Today was my second walk in Joyce's Mini Walking Festival. This was the listing in the brochure...

"Mon: 14th Sept. Ipswich to Woodbridge using the Fynn Valley Way. A 12-mile linear walk – train back **". Train back? Woo! My first journey by public transport since February!

This was our route...

 

There was the full complement of 6 of us today. The two green stars in the listing meant the difficulty was "You can do it". And indeed we could. We met as planned at a footpath sign near 115 Valley Rd and set off in good time just before 9:30. This was a walk Joyce had led before with the group but it was on a working day for me so I missed it first time around. I had heard it was lovely and I wasn't disappointed. We hadn't gone far before I realised I recognised where we were walking. The first three miles followed part of the route of the Wolsey Waddle I had done last July! But the rest was nearly all new to me, including the Fynn Valley and some of the path along the Deben towards Woodbridge towards the end.

Here are a few of my photos.

Here we are at the start, in bright sunshine.

The first part of the walk followed the Fonnereau Way, which commemorates the Fonnereau family, towards Westerfield.It is also part of the East Suffolk Lines walks.

Off wee go through the leafy lane.

We crossed the railway line with the scary motion-activated voice telling us to beware.

 

 

We discovered only after we had gone along this path and through these double gates that we had missed a path diversion. Fortunately we didn't get shouted at.

This trig point next to the bench where we took our team photo is all of 54m above sea level.

These sunflowers in Tuddenham Village are cheerful.

Here we joined the Fynn Valley Path and the next section of the  East Suffolk Lines Walks, which would take us all the way to Woodbridge Station.

Time for a drinks break. It was already getting quite warm.

Now we were walking along the Fynn River. Lovely!

We passed All Saints, Little Bealings church.

This tree features in the brochure for the  Fynn Valley walk.

The route crosses the busy A12 via a tunnel.

Here we had a blackberry-picking break.

In the village of Martlesham...

...we stopped at the Red Lion. The beer was OK but the coffee was cold.

 

 

Soon we reached the River Deben.

The walk along it to the centre of Woodbridge was delightful.

Here is a redshank enjoying the river edge.

Joyce pointed out that over the other side of the river here is where we will be walking tomorrow.

Our timing was perfect for the train. The ticket machine on the station wasn't working, but we were able to pay when we got to Ipswich. (No we didn't get a free trip!)

As we returned to our cars, we were once again on the Fonnerau Way.

Thanks, Joyce for the great walk, and to everyone else for the amiable company.

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