Thursday walk from The White Horse PH at Tilbrook.
We were fortunate enough to have a lovely bright sunny morning
with a slight breeze for the five and a half mile long walk.We started by going across a couple of easy stiles and into the
village of Tilbrook with some attractive stone houses, a typical
Northamptonshire style church and a paddock of sheep.
After a short road
section we were out into the wide expansive countryside with large arable
fields. A fair bit of activity was seen with various coloured tractors
ploughing, harrowing and seeding the fields after the harvesting. One tractor
stopped. It had an automatic guidance system aboard so the driver could sit
back and not have to turn the steering wheel!
We walked alongside the disused Cambridge to Kettering railway
and on into Covington village. Here we paused by the pretty village sign and
chatted to a guy cutting grass on a steep bank; once it was with a scythe but
now he uses a strimmer.
After a slight deviation around a newly ploughed field, rather
than across, we followed some more grassy verges downwards and back to the main
road close to the pub. It was in this last section that we saw a group of
alpacas and some Devon Red cattle.
We were a large group out today and the pub had some difficulties
serving 27 lunches in a short time (they said there was only one cook but he
had come in early). Still, I think most people enjoyed their food and felt
better for having done a lot more than a brisk 10 minute walk, as recommended
on Radio 4 this morning.
Thanks to Ian and Carna for organising and leading a very enjoyable walk. Extra thanks to Carna for the walk report and the pictures below.
When is a llama not a llama? When it is an Alpaca.
Red Devon cattle met en-route.
Confucius say "wise man go round edge of muddy field".
No prizes for guessing the name of the village passed through on the walk.
A goodly number of 28 walkers met at The Old Barn at Wadenhoe on a bright morning which earlier had a slight Autumnal feel to it. This was the first walk led by Mike and Sue W who were not a little daunted by the good turnout. There were a number of new walkers whom the chairman had recruited from the WEA : Ann and Len J, Richard M and Moira S.
It was also good to see the return of some stalwarts who had been absent for some time including Dorothy W , Colin and Konnie B. and also the return of Rosemary W following her recent illness.
The route took them past Wadenhoe MIll and over the fields by way of the River Nene to Achurch then To Thorpe Wateville then back to Aldwincle, then following the Nene Way back to Wadenhoe where an opportunity was taken to have a look at the parish church which sits in glorious isolation from the rest of the village on the top a hill.
On returning to the Old Barn we were joined by Ann R for lunch which was taken al fresco The food was excellent and especially commented upon was the home made steak pie such that when one of the group complimented a member of staff on it she replied " I'm glad you like it, I made it".
Good job she hadn't complained about it.
Thanks to Mike and Sue W for organising and leading an excellent first walk and to Julie S for acting as back marker.
A very disappointing turnout of only two walkers plus the leader turned out for the walk from Isham.
It may have been because of the change of day from Saturday to Sunday but it must have been very disheartening for the walk leader.
Thanks to John M for organising and leading the walk and nothing daunted he says he will lead a walk on the Winter card.