Great Livermere Walk

It was a lovely sunny morning and everyone was up early so we went for a morning walk. I decided to use the Discover Suffolk Great Livermere Walks - Two Mere Strolls leaflet I had picked up when we did our Ingham walk in February, which turned out to be a great choice.

Sarah had never been to Ampton Water before and I knew she would enjoy seeing the birds on the lakes. This is the route as shown in the leaflet.

We did both walks, starting with Spinneys and Coverts, shown in green, followed a A Mere View - a little over 6 miles in total.

Here are a few of my photos.

No Sarah isn't still asleep.

At the village green the daffodils were nodding cheerfully in the sun.

We saw plenty of birds early on in our walk, including a chicken wandering across the road, some peacocks, including a white one, and this pair of partridges in a field.

After the gentle climb to the southernmost point of our walk we got a lovely view back towards Great Livermere.

We wondered what all this pampas grass was doing at the field edge.

Back at the village, we passed a field with sheep, including some lambs.

We passed through the churchyard of the thatched 12th century St. Peter's church as we started on the second part of our walk.

Soon we were at Broad Water, teeming with ducks, gees and other wildfowl. We heard some lapwings but I wasn't fast enough with my camera when they flew across in front of us.

The oil-seed rape is in full bloom now.

The red arrow had broken and fallen of the waymarker post in Livermere Park where we turned left. Sarah tried fixing it back on, but it wouldn't stay in place.

As we had done in February, we crossed Ampton Water on this bridge, despite the sign saying it was closed.

This is the view from the bridge of The Grade II listed Jacobean style Ampton Hall. The current building dates from 1892 - the previous building burnt down in 1885. It was the birthplace in 1805 of Robert FitzRoy, who became the second Governor of New Zealand. 

Following the path on the other side through Oldbroom plantation, we found lots of trees down over the path.

But we made it through and were soon back where we started.

That was a lovely walk and we were home in good time for lunch. Thank-you Discover Suffolk!

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