Today we had a local (to me and Dawn) walk with many familiar paths.
This was the invite from Joyce.
"Friday September 13th. I have devised a circular walk from Bury St Eds train station or Dobbies Garden Centre IP33 2RN. I have an afternoon hair appt in Bury town centre so hence the early start and the location. If you would like to meet me at Bury Train Station, I will be there at 9am for the Ipswich train arrival (the Cambridge train arrives at 8.23am or 8.58am). We will then walk over to Dobbies via the Abbey Gardens and arrive approx at 9.30am. You can park on the road opposite the entrance of Dobbies Garden Centre but not in their car park. We are then heading down the cycle path to Rushbrooke and we will pass The Rushbrooke Arms for drinks before using the paths back towards Nowton Park. Then across to Hardwick Heath. Plenty of toilets on our route. Pls bring a packed lunch. I will then ‘dump’ you in Bury Town Centre for you to make your way back to cars/trains/buses etc. If you are walking from the train station then the walk will be about 11 miles but if you are meeting me at Dobbies then your walk will be about 9 miles depending on how much further you walk around Bury afterwards. It is a lovely town centre to be ‘dumped’ in 😊 "
Dawn and I walked down to Dobbies where we met several others before Joyce arrived from the station with the rest.
This was our route from there to where we dispersed in town at the end.
Here are a few of my photos.
We all met up at the pedestrian crossing by the Police Criminal Investigation Centre.
We passed the entrance to the new building site. I hate to think what traffic will be like here by the A14 junction when the new houses are built.
We took the bridleway running parallel to the A14.
We could see the other development site of the A134 in the distance. That will surely cause traffic problems too.
We came to the underpass under the A14. Dawn and I could have done a short walk by meeting everyone here. Here we turned away from the A14...
...and doubled back towards Rushbrooke lane.
This is a rat-run at busy times to cut the corner between and A134 and the A14 east Rougham turning, but we only had a few white vans to avoid.
Looking towards the hospital chimney and the cathedral we could see the compound for the new building site we had walked past earlier.
On reaching Rushbrooke Lane we turned uphill into the Rushbrooke estate.
We didn't get as far as the village, though, before we turned right to head downhill to Sicklesmere.
We could see Nowton Church, but we wouldn't be walking past it today.
The path is straight and wide. Rachel and I had got left behind as we stopped to admire the view.
We had an extended drinks stop at the Rushbrooke Arms.
Well there were 16 of us today, so it took a while for all the teas and coffees to get served. We admired the hanging baskets and enjoyed our seat in the sun.
We headed uphill along Hawstead Lane which has some pretty houses.
We admired the gathering of doves at this house. There must have been at least a dozen of the burds.
Up the hill to the junction of paths where we turned right instead of continuing along the St Edmund Way.
Going past the paddocks of The Grove we encountered juicy blackberries...
The smell of the freshly baked bread and pastries was very enticing...
...and we made the shop very busy for a few minutes.
Then it was on into Nowton Park, passing the panda (see top of the post) and the maze.
There are some lovely trees in the park.
Along the avenue of limes. It's the wrong time of year to see the daffodils (but see them
here).
We stopped for lunch by the visitor centre.
Skirting houses at first...
We turned into the estate to get to Hardwick Heath, passing this nest on the way....
...and this elegant thatched cottage in the middle of more modern houses.
Across Hardwick Heath to the ice-cream van...
...and the path to the hospital.
We rejoined the St Edmunds Way on the way into town.
We headed for the town centre....
...where we dispersed when we got to Abbeygate Street.
Here we saw an art project in action photographing a young lady holding a
doomsday clock with the hands at 90 seconds to midnight.
Dawn and I returned home through the Abbey Gardens, where we saw a wedding party having photographs taken.
Thank-you Joyce for leading us round and to everyone else for the additional company.
You can see more details of our 9.5 miles route 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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