Mapledurwell

It was a perfect day for a walk today, a bit overcast so not too hot and it was dry, although we did get a lot of rain last night so our expectations on the mud front were fairly high.

We decided on a fairly local walk over to the village of Mapledurwell. The footpath starts in a little industrial estate just off the A30 and leads to a footbridge over the M3. It was a bit of a noisy start but it wasn’t long before we were in the countryside.

We followed the long, straight path that the farmer had kindly left unplanted. This shows on the map as a course of a Roman road, but not an actual footpath.

We carried on, over a stile and into a field of sheep, before finding our way out onto the lane.

A brief stop at the village pond before rejoining the path at the other end of the field we’d just left. I guess we could have just walked through the field but we got to see some very nice houses and, of course, the pond.

Leaving the sheep behind, we followed the path around, then through a couple of fields.

Even though we weren’t too far from the motorway, it was lovely and quiet. We are so lucky we have lots of beautiful countryside to walk in.

Before long we reached a little coppice of woodland. We spotted a mass of white flowers amongst the trees, together with a pretty direct instruction not to leave the footpath.

Unable to spot any camouflaged gunmen hiding in the trees, we nonetheless decided to do as we were told and stick to the path and take our photos from a distance.

The path came out into a farmyard where we spotted a little family of black lambs. Still wary of the high velocity rifles, we didn’t get too close, do not the best of photos.

Around the corner we were treated to a large pond with two swans and four cygnets. By now we were on someone’s drive and I guess the pond was part of their front garden, just with a public footpath running through. We had a little chat to someone who we thought was probably the gardener. I think he was joking when he mentioned a charge for taking photos – we carried on anyway.

Back to the path we found some black rams, luckily separated from us by a fence as they didn’t look too friendly.

And then the mud, we knew we had to find some somewhere. Someone had obviously attempted to put down some branches to form a path, but it was a bit precarious in places.

By now we were right next to the motorway, although we were hidden by the undergrowth we could see the traffic thundering past.

Returning to the footbridge we carried onto Conkers Garden Centre for lunch.

Just under 4 miles today and another lovely walk.