Norton Walk

Today we did a walk from Norton - a mere 6 miles from home and just over 10 minutes by car for me.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Sunday June 20th.  A walk based on Anna McGowan's suggestion (Thank you Anna). We have permission to park at Norton Village Hall, 4 Ixworth Road, IP31 3LE. It's an early start: Pls be ready to walk at 8.30am. We will head to Pakenham , Stowlangtoft and who knows where else....mileage is approx. 10.50 miles. It’s Fathers Day so we will finish walk by 1.30pm. The Dog Pub is a good place for a drink afterwards."

After all the rain we had had on Thursday and Friday and with more forecast last night and this morning, this might have got cancelled, but the weather forecast this morning was good enough that we went ahead.

This was our route. There were a few bits of path I hadn't walked before, but a lot of it I had, although not necessarily in the same direction.

Here are a few of my photos.

Norton has an exceptionally large village hall. We met as planned in the car park.

We walked through the village...

...and then to St. Andrew's Church, Norton , starting point for this walk in Jan 2020 that is possibly the muddiest I've been on.

We arrived in Stowlangtoft on this path which I'd used in the other direction on this walk.

We could barely see the church behind the trees at the centre of the village.

Past Stowlangtoft Hall, now a residential nursing home...

...and the new house that had the footpath through its yard, but now has an official diversion....

...and the sign warning of "Dead slow children".

We caught a glimpse of Ixworth Church, but we weren't going that way.

We stopped for our coffee break at the Baileypool bridge at Grimstone End. I remarked that we keep seeming to cross "Weak Bridges" on our walks.

We didn't go towards the watermill today, but the other way, towards Pakenham village. Here we passed a monkey puzzle-tree bearing cones.

Crossing Pakenham Fen we got to our jungliest bit of path so far this summer.

But it didn't last long. Soon were on a path with a lovely display of poppies.

We went along the High Sreet.in Pakenham...

As we came to the path up the hill towards Pakenham Wood, look what we found! Miranda and Karen were quite close to it before it ran off....

...but I spotted it again off to the side.

"From here you should be able to see all the churches we've passed today", said Joyce. Hmm. It was still a bit drizzly so visibility wasn't so good.

We came to the airfield of Little Haugh Hall.

We found this notice...

...just before crossing this field of oats.

We passed The Dog once more, leaving Miranda and Karen to stop for a cup of coffee.

Then it was home to cook the lunch.

A great walk again. Thanks Joyce and to the other ladies for the company.

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