Today we had a lovely autumnal walk from Thetford despite the persistent drizzle.
This was the invite from Joyce.
"Tuesday Nov 21st Thetford . Please park in the small riverside car park at Nuns Bridges (What3 words - bumpy.magnets.pounces) opposite Mill Lane at 10am. There are no toilets here. We will have a circular walk of approx 12.50 miles. It will be a forest walk and we will cross the busy A11 at one point. I have walked it and it's fabulous. It was good underfoot but there are a couple of portions by the river that will need to be walked slowly as the bank is very close to the waters edge. We will have a drinks stop + toilets at Thetford Golf Club at 5.5 miles into the walk (approx midday) . The coffee/tea is good but is payable with a £2 coin. Lunch will be taken when convenient so pls bring sandwich etc with you. We will finish about 3.30pm. "
There were just 4 of us with Alicia joining us for a second time and Chris for the first. This was our route, going clockwise starting out on the Angles Way and St. Edmunds Way before turning north.
We met at Nuns Bridges Car Park as planned and set off on time. Here are a few photos, although, not having a lens cap, I had difficulty keeping my camera lens unspotted by raindrops, so some may be a little blurred..
Nuns' bridges, is where the River Little Ouse joins the River Thet, There is supposed to be a
ghost here.
About ready to go.
Early on we saw a couple of muntjac deer. Here is the second of them.
We saw some typical Breckland skyline of scots pine trees...
...and plenty of autumn colour.
We crossed part of the
Exolum Pipeline system , previously known as the CLH Pipeline System (and before that,
GPSS - The Government Pipelines and Storage System).. This branch is labelled T/L/M, which I think, from viewing a map of the network, stands for Thetford /Lakenheath / Mildenhall.
We had some lovely paths to walk on.
We saw plenty of mushrooms
We passed the remains of
Thetford Warren Lodge, which dates from around 1400. I had been here on a walk led by Chris before (see
here).
Alas I failed to catch on camera the two fallow deer we startled and then ran across the rack in front of us and the white deer we saw through the trees.
Joyce led us along a path through the bracken that had lots of mushrooms....
...towards Thetford Golf Club clubhouse - bang on midday, as planned.
Here we had tea, coffee and, in my case, a glass of Thetford Forest Pale Ale. I wonder if that is something else rebadged as I can't find anything about it.
It's quite an impressive looking golf course.
Onward now through the forest. These brackets are impressive.
As are these large mushrooms.
Some lovely holly. It was too early to pick any for Christmas though.
We found a team plating trees, like Joyce and I saw on
this walk on Berner's Heath in 2021.
They were planting red cedars.
We crossed the Little Ouse river and walked along the east bank....
Chris showed us where she used to take her children to swim in the river by
Abbey Heath weir
This was one of the bits by the river that Joyce mentioned in her invite.. "..
that will need to be walked slowly as the bank is very close to the waters edge" .
I was at the back and decide to have a bit of fun. I picked up a loose branch and threw it into the river. I wish I'd had my camera trained on the ladies in front as they turned around expectign to see I'd fallen into the river. 😂
We continued along the river through Thetford....
...crossing that oil pipeline again.
This is the town bridge...
The river is running quite swiftly.
Soon enough we were back at our start.
Thank-you Joyce for leading us round and thank-you Chris and Alicia for the extra company. You can see more details of our 13.4 mile route here on MayMyWalk (or download a GPX file here) and more of my photos here on Flickr.
Other related walks you can find on my blog include
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