Friday, June 29, 2007

Holiday Time Again!

Yay - it's Friday, it's 5:30 and it's time to finish for a two week holiday!

Pembrokeshire Coast Path here I come. Well, just need to pack tonight and then navigate over to Wales tomorrow whilst avoiding any floods. Then it's a few days in a cottage to relax before starting the walk proper on Wednesday next week. 185 miles, 12 bed and breakfasts (so 12 full cooked breakfasts!) and I'm sure a there'll be a few pubs along the way.

Oh and there's about 35 geocaches on the route too which I'll try and find.

Photographs as usual when I get back.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Sunset from Hitcham

A few quickly grabbed photographs from the end of our garden last night as the sun suddenly dipped below the cloud and set.


Even a patch of nettles can look pretty in this light.


The final one, to the right there's a glider about to turn and land at nearby Rattlesden gliding club (you need to click and see the bigger image to make out anything!).

The Angles Way (day 2)

Sunday turned out to be not such a good day as the Saturday had been. This was both in terms of weather and also the walk itself.

After a good nights sleep (being woken once by ducks drinking water of the tent that had collected overnight!) we got the tent packed away just as it started to rain. The rain lasted for most of the day, never really heavy but never light enough to take off waterproofs so it was quite hot and sticky going.

From Scole to Harleston the path seems to wind backwards and forwards at random. We crossed the main A143 several times. Approaching Brockdish it suddenly doubles back and takes you about 3/4 mile detour to end up a few hundred yards further on down the same road. Then you are taken back over the A143 once again to pass through an industrial estate and new housing developments at Harleston. I'm sure there must be some nice part to the town, but we never got to see it.

Today wasn't really a day for photographs, but we did take one of a bull as we passed by his field. Not sure that the fence would really prove much of a deterrant to him if he wanted to get out!



Things did improve a little after Harleston. Then we decided to cut our walk short as we had to be in Bungay by 6pm that evening for a meal. As we came down to Mendham we spotted R's parents in their car who were supposed to be meeting up with us a few miles further on. Just by coincidence they had stopped to check the map and then saw us coming down over the fields and waited. They had tried walking some of the path further along near Earsham and found an electric fence right across it with no clear sign where the path went. Given this we agreed that the 13 miles that we had done already were enough for the day and drove to meet up with the rest of the family and get cleaned up ready for going out.

The rest of the evening was lovely, the Thai Kitchen in Bungay is highly recommended if you are ever looking for somewhere to eat.

The Angles Way

The weather really did seem to be on our side for the walk and camping. On Saturday we had maybe 10 minutes of rain while walking. For most of the day we could just go along in t-shirts. Lots of storms around nearby though so I'm sure many people weren't so lucky.

The Angles Way proved to be quite a mixed sort of path. The start from Knettishall Heath was lovely, as was walking through the many fens in the area. Who knew there could be so many Fen Lanes, Fen Streets, Fen Roads all in a small area! We detoured slightly around Redgrave and Lopham Fen to find a geocache there. While there we passed a great nest box - just hope that birds can read.



Other views...

(I wonder who styles this cow's hair?)




Shortly before reaching Diss the path seemed to change from a well used way into a random collection of footpaths. At one point it heads straight through a field currently 6 ft high with oilseed rape.


A path had been cut through earlier in the year as the crop was growing, but with the plants either side being so tall they had just collapsed in. Thankfully it hadn't rained there so they were dry to push through.

Finally at 7pm we arrived at our campsite in Scole - 8.5 hours and 19 miles from Knettishall Heath. It's a nice quiet site, with the River Waveney running through it. We last camped there 12 years ago when cycling, and not much had changed. It was still inhabited by lots of friendly ducks. Immediately after setting up the tent we got our first real downpour complete with thunder. Great timing! It only lasted for 15 minutes or so then we could get on with cooking tea.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Must be mad!

Despite the forecasts predicting so much rain and thunder and lightning over the weekend, I'm still seriously planning to go walking and camping tomorrow along the Angles Way.


Starting off at Knettishall Heath, the path follows the Little Ouse river to it's source at which point it looks like it then starts flowing in the opposite direction to become the River Waveney. If all goes well I should be camping in Scole tomorrow evening, then heading on to Bungay on Sunday.

Then in Bungay the plan is to meet up with family for a meal out to celebrate my niece's 9th birthday. Is walking gear and rucksack (potentially dripping wet) considered suitable attire for a restaurant?

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Video of the poppy field

A short panoramic video of the field of poppies we saw at the weekend in Blaxhall.


Tuesday, June 19, 2007

A weekend holiday at home

The weekend just felt like a holiday for some reason. It was totally relaxing, but full of activity.

On Saturday R and I went in to Ipswich to do shopping. This isn't something that you could normally call realxing, but for once we got everything we were looking for and also avoided all of the rain showers too. We used the Park and Ride in to town for the first time ever. It was nice to have a change and avoiding queuing traffic in to town, plus the overpriced car parks. £3.00 for up to 5 people to get the bus in and out.

On Sunday we got our bikes out of the garage for the first time in over a year and headed over to R's parents. We all went out on a 21 mile route using the lanes and bridleways around Rendlesham. On one part we came across a field dotted with some wild flowers we haven't seen before and haven't yet identified.



On the way we found one geocache that we had looked for a few weeks ago but hadn't been able to find. Going back a second time, we discovered it within a few minutes. The pot was small, and well camouflaged, but we were sure we had checked there before. Even this time I overlooked it once.

Further on was a field completely filled with poppies. Quite often in Suffolk the crop fields have quite a lot of poppies in them, but this was the fullest field I have ever seen. A farmer who used to own the field stopped and told us that this was the finest display he had ever known in 40 years. Apparently the field used to be regularly sprayed when sugar beet was grown there so they never came up. Then Jordans cereals wanted oats grown there, and the use of chemicals was restricted so the seed started to grow. Now the field has been set aside for a few years and this is the result.




The photo's really don't capture the full effect. The church is Blaxhall, so stop by if you are in the area soon.

After our exercise we rewarded ourselves with an Indian meal at The Bengal in Wickham Market.

Monday morning started out a bit wet so we were'nt sure what to do. We met up with R's old schoolfriend who was back in Suffolk for a few days and went to complete another geocache at Hemley. This involved looking round the church there to get information to put coordinates together where the actual cache container was hidden. This turned into a great walk along the River Deben.

Next stop was Newbourne Springs nature reserve as the sun had now come out. We found a small clearing and had a picnic lunch there. The reserve was really quiet, we almost must have had it to ourselves. Apart from the loads of butterflys flitting about.



Moving on again we returned to R's parents house where the River Deben (much smaller here than it was at Hemley) runs past the end of their garden. We paddled along in a boat, watched by cows in the meadows alongside.



To cap the weekend off we went out for tea again, this time to The Seal pub in Woodbridge.

Shame to be back in work today! I'd much rather have continued our 'holiday at home'.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

A like-minded soul

Looking through my site stats on friday I saw that several visitors had arrived from another blog which I haven't seen before. It's A Simple Life of Luxury.

I followed the link back, and found that Alan had written about my last post. Reading through several of his and Anna's blog entries, we seem to be very similar. He too is a geocacher, and enjoys what the UK has to offer. They have recently been to Islay, which has been featured on Springwatch this year.


Well, the sun is still shining outside so it's back out into the garden for me. The vegetable patch is starting to look fuller, and there are a few tomatoes in the greenhouse, though still quite green yet.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

A Very Welsh Week

Back from holiday. And I could do with another one to recover. We all had a great time, with lots of varied activities.

The cottage was great - an upside down design with the bedrooms downstairs and the kitchen and living room upstairs. This meant you could sit in the evenings and look out over the hillsides. There was also a deck in the back garden with a big barbecue. We had a fun BBQ night with my parents visiting, and also some friends from the Lleyn Peninsula.

In a lot of ways my nieces got to experience the same sort of holiday that I spent as a child here 20 years ago. Then we stayed on a farm and made good friends with the owners. Back then my sister and I would get to go round the fields, see the animals and help out in the cow sheds and with the sheep.

This year was just the same - a field of about 130 sheep and lambs needed to be moved 2 miles to another field. So we helped out - sometimes encouraging them on from behind, and others getting ahead to make a lot of noise and waving to send them the right way at junctions, and keep them out of gardens, streams, churchyards etc.

Another memory I have is of riding around a field on a scrambler motorbike. This time it was a quad bike and the girls loved it.

Trips out included Beddgelert, fishing from Nefyn beach (unsuccessfully), walking at Borth Y Gest, getting drenched at Borth Y Gest, watching seals at Porth Dinllaen, and going aboard the lifeboat there. R and I also had a couple of more sedate days at Bodnant Garden and walking round the walls in Conwy. We finished up with a 5 hour sea fishing trip which was also very quiet - just a few dogfish to show for it.

Anyway - on with a few photos...


Beddgelert



Sunset - Nefyn Beach



Sunset - Nefyn Beach (almost gone!)



Approaching storm - Borth Y Gest



Nefyn Bay



Yr Eifl



Porth Dinllaen



Bodnant Garden



Conwy Walls