Leicestershire Round - Woodhouse Eaves to Mountsorrel

Thursday 4th July 2008
Today we parked in Woodhouse Eaves to do a celebratory Leicestershire round walk as I have finally finished my radiotherapy. The idea was to just walk to the reservoir and back so I wasn't worn out too much. We set off across a good footpath through a field of corn towards a farm and then across a field with a herd of sleepy cows. We then walked through a field of maize until we got to Bunny bridge over the Great Central Railway. We followed the road to Swithland reservoir where we had originally decided to turn round and retrace our steps, however, we decided to continue the walk to Mountsorrel as we were both feeling ok.

Halfway round the reservoir the heavens opened. We managed to stand in the lea of some trees to shelter until the storm passed (about 20 Minutes) and did not get too wet. When the sun came out we continued walking round the reservoir taking care not to tread on the little froglets that were hopping across the wet road. We did pass a lad slopping along in soaking socks, carrying his dripping shoes - he obviously had not been able to find any shelter.

We crossed the road and continued towards Mountsorrel, walking round a quarry and past the castle mound.

We had lunch at "The Swan" whilst another shower passed and afterwards followed the road towards Mountsorrel Quarry where we lost the path and were shown the correct way by a worker. Apparently the bridleway is shown on the map as going through the middle of their weighbridge building. The diverted path took us around the back of the quarry buildings but was not well marked. We dodged the quarry lorries and eventually found the footpath which passed through woodland, until we came back to the road that goes around Swithland reservoir. We retraced our steps and just missed seeing a steam train pass under Bunny bridge- We saw clouds of steam. We walked back across the fields which were a lot wetter than when we had passed earlier. I was exhausted by the time we got back to the car but was pleased to have made it despite having finished radiotherapy yesterday. We walked 14 km.