First walk of the Year -Frisby on the Wreake

Sunday January 3rd
It was a cold but bright day and as heavy snow is forecast over the next few days we decided to go for the first walk of the year while we can. We drove to Frisby on the Wreake, which is on the Leicestershire / Rutland border, and parked opposite the pub. The pavements were very icy and we had to be careful as we got out of the car. We slipped and slid up Bell Lane and then found a footpath between two houses. We passed through the gate, and were intrigued by the way the gate was hung; it was too close to a tree, and so a large chunk had been cut out of the tree enabling the handle to pass through, and the gate to open. We crossed the field which was frozen and covered with a light dusting of snow. A couple of horses were huddled under their coats looking very cold. As we approached the first cache site there were suddenly walkers appearing from all directions, so we had to admire the view until we could hunt for the cache. It was quickly found and we continued our walk. Several large fields were crossed until we emerged into Kirby Bellars. We diverted to find a cache and then walked down a small lane to a bridge where there was a lovely view of the church. We walked along an embankment, though a field containing lots of black sheep with curly horns, and then over a bridge which had crossed an old canal and then onto an icy lane, which led to Ashfordby Valley. We had planned this to be just a diversion to get some caches but studying the map we discovered we could use a different footpath to make a small circular walk. John is putting all the footpaths from our walks onto Open Street Maps so using new footpaths helps build up the database. We walked along the road at Ashfordby and eventually found the footpath, leading back over the fields towards Kirby Bellars.
At the church we turned right and followed the paths in the snow towards the lake. The lake was frozen but was covered with birds, lots of swans, ducks and geese. We were treated to the sight of a flock of swans taking off. The noise of their wings was incredible as they took off from the frozen lake. We were surprised to see that the footpath went straight through the middle of the lake, it was built up on a small embankment, and we then walked beside the River Wreake and the railway until we got back to Frisby. As we were signing the log book of a cache by the church, two people came towards us, they were also cachers and had been doing a similar walk but in the opposite direction. We had walked 10.5 km and found 11 caches.