Bluebell Walk

Today, in a lull before the onslaught of the kitchen replacement, Dawn and I did the perennial Bluebell Walk from Suffolk Food Hall.

We'd seen a lot of bluebells out and thought it might be a good time to do it now - and we weren't disappointed. In a slight variance from the usual route (partly because I went wrong when we got to Alton Water and went in the wrong direction of 1/2 mile or so, we shortened the walk a little and tried some new paths.

This was our route today.

We weren't sorry to have gone the wrong way for a bit as we did come across a pair of nightingales singing (identified for us by the excellent Merlin app), which we wouldn't have done otherwise. It identified quite a few blackcaps too among the more common Robins, Wrens, Great Tits, Blue Tits and Chiff-chaffs. Anyway, here are a few of my photos.

Our starting point, the Suffolk Food Hall.

You get a nice view down the Orwell as you climb the hill.

The path along the edge of Cutler's Wood.

And then Great Birch wood.

Looking along the edge of the wood as we left it.

We didn't see much on Alton Water, but a chap we met in the bird hide said he had seen a pair of kingfishers.

We left Alton Water to walk on this path with interesting trees..

...and a good view of Tattingstone Place.

We passed Little Birch wood - also full of bluebells.

Here we got a view of the bell tower at the Royal Hospital School.

Along the quiet road between Woodley Wood and Hale's Grove. There were plenty of wood anemones here too.

A private path through Woodley wood.

Heading towards Freston we came to this churned up path. It was dry enough to walk now but must have been quite horrid a week or so ago.

We passed Bond Hall...

...and paused here for our shared lunchtime pasty.

Our last bluebell wood was Freston wood. It too was delightful.

Down towards the bottom of the hill, as usual at this time of year, there was a profusion of ramsons (aka wild garlic) in flower.

Just before we got to the main road, we found a new bridge which allows walkers to cut the corner off the junction of two paths that used to require walking along the road for a bit.

From there it was a short stretch back to the Food Hall and our start.

A lovely walk and quite warm in the sun when out of the wind. The bluebells and ramsons were super and I think will be at their best in the next week or so, so do go and see them while they are flourishing.

You can see more details of our 8.7 mile route here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here) and see more of my photos here on Flickr.

Other related posts on my blog include:

• Shotley peninsula bluebell walk (Jul 2028) (but without the bluebells)
• Suffolk Walking Festival Bluebell Walk (May 2019)
• Not The Suffolk Walking Festival Bluebell Walk (May 2020)
• Bluebell Walk (May 2021)
• Bluebell Walk (May 2022)
• Argers Fen Bluebells and 3 Dragons Walk (Apr 2023).