Today we had a winter walk that has become a favourite for bathing in trees... and avoiding mud. It was from West Stow Country park through the King's Forest to Berner's Heath and back.
The
SSSI at Berner's Heath is accessible from November until the end of February... so it's time to visit it while we can. This was the invite from Joyce.
"Monday December 11th Please join us for a 9 mile circular walk from West Stow Country Park to Berner's Heath. You can park for £3 or park on the opposite side of the road for free. The forecast is looking good and I love walking in the forest. We will meet at West Stow CP at 10.30am for coffee and start walking about 11am. John is collecting 2 walkers from Bury St Edmunds train station (at 9.57am) if you would a lift pls get in touch with me as he will have 1 spare seat. The pace won't be mega fast and we will eat our packed lunches on a tree stump so please come prepared."
She also included a link to my blog post of last year's walk - see here.
Dawna and I collected Roland and Caroline from Bury St. Edmunds station just before 10 am and we were in the café by 10:15, so in plenty of time. Joyce and Nick joined us just after 10:30 and we set off on our walk as planned at about 11 am.
This was our route.
Here are a few of my photos.
The café at the start.
It has a corner with cards to help you identify the birds at the feeder outside.
We were soon in the forest.
I liked this grass by the trees.
We saw and heard plenty of these planes coming in to land.
We were mostly in sunshine as we walked....
...but there were some gloomy skies around. We didn't get wet, though.
Our lunch stop was among this line of trees.
As before, we came across some mushrooms here, but we were a few weeks later than last year and the puffballs had all puffed their last, leaving cups that filled were with rainwater.
We sat on this tree trunk last time too.
Then it was on to Berner's Heath, Roland finding how to unlatch this gate so we didn't have to climb over.
As described in
this article
(from which I took the photograph at the top of the post), it was used
in the second world war for target practice by bombers. You can see the
shape best from an aerial photograph like this one from the
Defra Magic site.
"The heath is the largest remaining area of heather dominated
heath in the Brecks. It contains blocks of heather of different ages as a
result of rotational heather burning conducted as a management
strategy. Heather dominates the heath, achieving almost 100% coverage
with blocks divided by rides. This allows a variety of different ground
cover species to develop in different areas of the heath. In the areas
of younger heather this includes species such as sheep’s sorrel and
mosses, although in areas where heather is slightly older and growing
quickly ground cover is restricted. Older, established blocks of heather
have greater biodiversity and include lichens as well as flowering
plant species such as heath bedstraw, lady’s bedstraw, common speedwell
and sheep’s fescue. These areas also support a wide range of insect
populations." This is why it's a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
There is some old heather (as you will see below), but I don't think the
Wikipedia article's claim that there is nearly 100% coverage is true. There are lots of interesting hummocks of grass.
"Dedicated to those from three local parishes who died during the First
World War, the Elveden War Memorial was unveiled on 21 November 1921. The
unveiling was attended by Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, the younger son
of Sir Duleep Singh, a former owner of the Elveden Estate.", says the site. It is a Corinthian column, over 30 metres high and surmounted by an urn.
Now we came to the cross in the middle of the heath and walked through it.
No need to feel anxious about being bombed - it's not used as a a practice target any more.
Her is some of the ancient heather.
We headed back along the edge of the forest.
As we did, we saw, firstly a couple of.... are they
roe deer with those white rumps?...
We passed an area where fallen trees have been left over the path to discourage off-roaders.
There are a number of badger setts here.
Our third and most impressive cervine encounter was with a group of 4 magnificent
red deer stags.
The field borders of scots pine trees here provide the distinctive Breckland skyline.
...before turning south-east and following the edge of the forest back towards the country park.
Looking back at the distinctive skyline.
Previously we have followed the St. Edmunds Way into the country park, but it looked as muddy as last time, so we decided to keep our boots clean...
...and walk along the road a short distance....
...before hopping over a fallen bit of fence and following the path through the country park to our start.
A lovely winter walk and our boots stayed clean, but the icing on the cake was the sight of those red deer. Thank-you Joyce for leading us around and the others for the additional company. We gave Roland and Caroline a lift back to Bury St. Edmunds station and they caught the 3pm train back to Ipswich with 30 seconds to spare.
You can find more details of our 9 mile walk here on MapMyWalk (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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