Walking 1000 miles from Lands end to John O'Groats in aid of The Air Ambulance (starts april 7th 2024)

Monday 20 May 2013

An odd land!

After the glorious sunshine yesterday it was a bit of a surprise to wake up with gray skies and a wet tent! Not that it was raining and neither did it rain all day! No complaints ;-)
As we headed off I can't say I made a mistake in navigation more like I just didn't bother to navigate at all! So after a nice circular walk in the lush meadows by the Ouse realisation sank in that this wasn't the route! We did see a nice church at Hemingford Grey .... Justification enough?. Back on the route half a kilometer from the start with two kilometers walked (ahem) and heading east (finally!) we wander thru a lush woodland called the thicket, part marshland with a nice paved cycle path running thru it keeping progress easy, the eerie call of peacock in the woods around us but none came to view before we walked into St Ives.
The hustle and bustle of the towns market was a sharp contrast to the woodland but pleasant enough, a coffee and breakfast roll eventually arrived from the tardy service at Greggs!, following the great Ouse way out of town past the delights of heavy lorries transporting sand and gravel from the pits we were walking thru to a place called Holywell where we found the well! Or recently bricked over spring by a church.... Nice little garden by it tho.
From the village onwards we enter the fens and find some wild Alexanders an edible cow parsley like plant introduced by the Romans into Britain and last seen at the beginning of this walk in St Davids!
The trail continued by the Ouse past a wide expanse of wet land with a profusion of water fowl and lap wing, into the dreary town of Earith to resupply before dragging our waining attentions for eight kilometers along the very straight and flat hundred foot drain, which goes all the way to King's Lynn thankfully without us!
At Mepal we restock water and head back to the drain to find a wild camp for tonight.