Wednesday, 13 November 2024

Mayday Hide Walk

No walk with Joyce this week as she is busy 'arts and crafting'. Instead, some of the group tagged along with Alicia's Cambridge Rambling Club walk from Mayday Hide.

This was a walk we had done with Joyce in January this year (see here).

This was the invite from Alicia.

"A walk Mayday Bird Hide, Brandon - November 13 @ 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Start of walk and car parking: The free car park at Mayday Bird Hide, Shaker’s Road, Brandon. Nearest postcode is IP27 0SS.Turn off the B1106 – Thetford to Brandon Road – what3words ///sprint.crucially.competing – into a wide unmade road, Shaker’s Road (the Forestry England post is Section 6) and head to the parking area.

Mileage: 12.5 approx.

Lunch: please bring all refreshments for the day. There will be a coffee break at the 4 mile point, Brandon Country Park. Toilets available. Lunch will be at the 8 mile point in a picnic area."

This was our route today, as it was in January, going clockwise from the start.

It included, for the fourth time this year for me, the first part (or last part if you are walking it in the other direction) of the St Edmund Way from Brandon to Santon Downham, not that I minded doing it again! Lots of woodland and autumn colours today and we got plenty of sunshine too.

Here are a few of my photos.

We set off at 10am as planned. There were 26 of us, including 7 members of Joyce's Weekly Walks walking group. We were soon among the trees with plenty of fallen leaves underfoot.


It was even nicer once the sun came out.


We were going at a good pace due to some faster walkers leading the way - after 57 minutes we had covered 3.1 miles! We slowed down a bit after that.

We came to the familiar sights (well to me anyway) of Edward Bliss's Mausoleum...


...and Brandon Park care home.


There was no wind to speak of so the waters of the lake were mirror calm.


We had our drinks break at the Copper Beech café.


Onward now to Brandon.



In the High St we came across some volunteers doing some work on the now spent floral decorations.


It was quite a group to get across the road.


We passed the plaque marking the end (or, when we did it earlier this year, start) of St. Edmund Way. as we headed towards Santon Downham.


There were a few horses in the fields we passed.


Back in the forest once more.


Our lunch stop was at the picnic area by the Breckland Club.


The village sign her is quite new, dating from 2022.


Santon Downham is renowned for its topsy-turvy weather conditions. It is regularly either the coldest or hottest spot in East Anglia, if not the whole of England. One of the village’s other claims to fame is that it was almost overwhelmed by sand in the 17th century. Between the years 1665 and 1670 sandstorms took place which threatened to overwhelm the village of Santon Downham and silted up the river between Thetford and Brandon. Read more about that here.

After our lunch stop we carried on through the village, covered in leaves rather than sand today.


We stopped at the toilets near the old post office. Knowing our planned route, Shaun and I took a little diversion to see the bridge over the River Little Ouse that appeared in a Dad's Army episode, as described here





We carried on past St. Mary's church - read Simon Knott's eloquent description on his Suffolk Churches site here.




This was the deepest coering of leaves we walked through today. I love the sound that wading through them makes.


Thetford Forest is, of course, a working forest. We passed some stacks of tree trunks.


Our final stop was at High Lodge where some hardy souls had ice-creams.


We saw and heard plenty of these jets on exercise this afternoon.


There are various things along the trails from High Lodge, including this owl...


...and this musical instrument.


Autumn colours were a highlight of the day.


It was only 3 o'clock, but the sun was already heading for the horizon.


But we were soon back to where we started.

A lovely walk! Thank-you Alicia for leading and to the other members of the Cambridge Rambling Club for letting us join them and being so welcoming.

You can find more details of our 13 mile 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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