Leicestershire Round: Ashby Folville to Burrough Hill

Saturday 18th October 2008
Today was bright and sunny so we set off to do the final section of the Leicestershire Round. We parked in Ashby Folville and set off up the road to join the LR. We climbed the stile into the first field to be encountered by a huge bull standing beside the path. He was much more interested in his lunch than us. As we climbed the slope we saw his family, a few cows with very young calves. We continued across the fields and under a bridge over the disused railway line and continued into Thorpe Satchville. There was a lovely church here but it was locked so we couldn't look around. From Thorpe Satchville we followed along Baker Lane towards Burrough on the Hill. We crossed onto a ploughed field and followed the track up the hill to Burrough Hillfort. This was where we had started this walk on 22nd August 2007. We walked along the ramparts to do a complete lap of the fort and then retraced our steps down and back to the Leicestershire Round. We walked across the fields and up to the road leading to Burrough on the Hill. We had a nice lunch in the Stag and Hounds and then left to walk towards Twyford. As we walked along the road a man came out of his house and asked us if we wanted some apples. He picked 4 lovely apples from his tree and gave them to us to munch on the way. They were lovely and sweet and juicy with pink flesh. The field towards Twyford was very difficult as it had been ploughed and was very uneven under foot. From Twyford we walked along the river through lots of fields full of sheep and headed back to Ashby Folville. It felt like quite an achievement to have finished the LR. We walked 15.7 km today and the whole walk had been 392km walked in 28 stages.

Linton, Derbyshire, From Beer to Eternity cache walk

Thursday 16th October 2008
We drove to Linton, just inside Derbyshire to do a walk and hunt for a series of geocaches based on Breweries. We parked near Bee Hive fishing lakes and set off for our walk. The first cache was found as we reached the first stile for our walk. We climbed the stile into a field which had only just been planted with rape plants. The footpath had not been reinstated but there was the beginning of a trail of footprints so we followed that across several fields to the edge of a patch of woodland. The stile here was in a dangerous condition and collapsed as we tried to climb over. Luckily there was a very stiff and heavy gate next to it so we were able to continue. We walked beside some farm buildings with lots of large containers outside. We saw that each one had a run attached and contained a young calf. We continued walking through several new areas of National Forest. Top wood and Potters wood were quite advanced, with the trees being about 10 years old. We sat for a while beside a trig point on the top of the hill where we had a snack and then diverted off from the walk to find a cache. The diversion was very wet and the fields were squelchy but we found the cache and retraced our steps back to our route. We continued walking through the woodland which was lovely –it was a bright sunny day, with just a bit of a chill wind, and the colours of the trees were wonderful, especially the spindle trees with their bright pink berries. We finished the walk alongside the fishing lakes as we approached the car park. We had found 13 caches along the way and had walked 13 km.

Leicestershire Round: Gaddesby to Ashby Folville

Monday 29th September 2008
It was a nice day so we decided to do some LR. We had been hoping that this would have been the last section to finish the LR but John has not been feeling too good (he has been having problems with his back and neck again) so we cut the route down to a short one. We parked in Gaddesby and walked down the lane to join the footpath going past the church. The door was open so we went in for a look. It was a lovely light airy church with lots of clover shaped windows. It contained a very large equestrian monument which is supposedly the only one in a church in England.

We then continued along the footpath until we joined the LR, where we had last left it. We crossed several fields, one containing some bullocks, but they ignored us. Lots of the fields had been ploughed but they were not too bad to walk over as it was fairly dry. We finally emerged in Ashby Folville. We decided to return here as we didn't want to overdo it. The pub here was closed for renovation and would be opening on Saturday. We thought that was a bit long to wait so decided to walk on to the pub in the next village. We walked alongside the church and then over the fields and along a path through a narrow stretch of woodland and over a stream. We crossed the driveway of a country house and then passed into a field full of cows which were all huddled close to the stile. We bravely walked through the field and managed to get over the stile where we walked into Blaseby. Here we sat on a wall to look at the map and the local postman stopped and told us the way. He was very friendly and looked a little like Billy Bunter! The pub here was now a building site. We carried on walking over fields full of sheep back towards Gaddesby. We finished the walk by passing under a long avenue of oak trees where we found that the pub did not open on Mondays, so it was back to the car for an apple before going home. We only walked 6 km but it was enough.