Needham Market Walk

Today I went on my first Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers walk for a while.

Led by Val it was based on the Highway's Walk from Derek Magnall's booklet of Needham Market Walks (see here).

This was our route, starting and finishing at the car park for Needham Lake. It is very similar to this rather wet walk I did with the Ramblers in September 2019.

Here are a few of my photos.

There were fifteen of us today. We set off on time along the side of the River Gipping. It was still quite misty.

The hoar frost...

...was melting fast. The drips from the trees into the river made it look like it was raining.

The path was a little slippery in places but not too muddy.

Here we turned away from the river and crossed the A14...

...to Creeting St. Mary. The village sign and trees behind looked a little spooky in the lingering mist and watery sunshine.

Now we started climbing the dizzy heights of Creeting Hills - nearly 55m above sea level.

We didn't follow this lane further to The Highwayman as it is not open on Tuesdays....

...but we turned right and stopped a little further on for our drinks break. We didn't stop for long as it was still a bit chilly.

Soon after, the last of the mist started to roll away... .

..and, climbing back up to Creeting Hills via Sally Wood Lane (see photo at the top), we got some pleasant views.

We wondered what this green foliage was by the path and under the trees.

Plantnet suggests it might be Claytonia perfoliata, known as miner's lettuce or winter-purslane, among other names.

Back at the village sign we could see it clearly now against the blue sky.

Then it was back along the river.

Crossing to the other side we walked though some houses by the railway line....

...and returned to our starting point via The Camping Land, where Val stopped and told us about the history.... 

...the entrance to the cattle tunnel...

...and the lake.

Thanks Val for an excellent morning's walk.

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