U3A Geldeston Walk

Today was the first Thursday of the month and so time for the monthly U3A Bury St Edmunds Longer Walks group walk. Today we were led by Martin and Jessica in a lovely circular walk in the Waveney Valley.

It is based on Walk 3 from this leaflet - Waveney Valley Walks, on the Discover Suffolk website, but starting at point 7, the Locks Inn and adding an extra loop to visit Geldeston Church.

This was the invite...

"I hope you are able to join Jessica and I on the next walk in the Beccles area. I am sorry it is a long drive, but hopefully it will be worth it.  

We will start at the Locks Inn, a community pub, in the middle of nowhere. They sell, besides good beer, homemade cakes and local ice cream. They also have a very large beer garden with lots of picnic tables. 

We will start by the side of the pub and cross the River Waveney by the lock and cross 2 water meadows to join the Angles way towards the town of Beccles. On arrival at the town we will cross back over the river and then join the riverside path back towards the pub via Geldeston church. We can finish with cakes and drinks at the Locks Inn.

What 3 words for the pub car park is tightrope. tummy. unlisted. GPS coordinates: 52°27'55.4"N 1°30'59.8"E  52.465389, 1.516602 Postcode: NR34 0HW

We are planning to start the walk at 10 a.m. Could you please let us know if you will be joining us on the day and also if you are unable to be there. In that way we can make sure we don't leave anybody behind."

This was our route...

Here are a few of my photos.

I had entered the postcode into my 11 year old satnav, but it took me here - a dead end the wrong side of the river about 1/2 mile from the pub. And, given the sign, I couldn't just park and walk. Fortunately Martin told me over the phone how to find the track to the car park from Geldeston. Thank-you Martin.

So we were about 15 minutes late starting on the walk. Thanks for waiting everybody!

We would be back at the pub later.

Ignoring the breakfast smells we continued to cross the River Waveney into Suffolk.

Passing where I had got to in my car earlier, we reached the Angles Way. It is a lovely path and we found plenty of blackberries here.

We followed the path into Beccles, pausing to admire these flowers. What are they? I still don't know.

We climbed up to St.Michael's Church for our drinks break.

It is very impressive and has a separate belltower.

You can read more about it in Simon Knott's write-up here.

We were struck by the Flemish influence along this road.

The town sign depicts the presentation of the charter by Queen Elizabeth I to John Baas, the first Port Reeve of Beccles in 1584.

Now we crossed the River Waveney again and followed the path alongside it to Geldeston.

It wasn't long until we were in the countryside again.

I'm don't know how bamboo came to be growing here.

We were very close to the water edge at times, and even saw some mud!

We also saw some seashells on the path, which we found surprising, but the map shows the river is still tidal up to here.

We found some jungly bits. I'm not a fan of head-high nettles.

In Geldeston we stopped for lunch by the Community Centre, helpfully equipped with picnic tables.

There was a map on the wall showing some local walks.

We did a little extra loop to St. Michael's Church, but it was locked so we couldn't go in.

We admired the round tower.

We passed the village sign,,,

...before finding our way back past our cars to the Locks Inn and a celebratory drink.

Thanks Martin and Jessica for a lovely walk. I think I'd like to go to Beccles again and explore a little more.

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