Just over a week since my last proper walk and decided it was time to go from home and find a slightly different route.
Jack’s at home , meeting up with friends to discuss his wedding next year and also go for a walk. I decide to head straight up the hill, knowing they will follow me and hopefully they won’t catch me up too soon!
I make quite good time and make it up to the gallops below the Ridgeway.
At this point I can see them and wave before heading through the wood- they cut along a track and beat me as we all come out below the main Ridgeway Path. I equip Jack with a screen shot of the map to show where he intends coming off the Ridgeway and we part company.
I’m going to double back on myself in order to walk along the ridge a bit. I’m going to go past Latin Down Farm entrance and then double back behind their land on a path that I’d walked past many times but never taken. It was strange walking alongside the fence to woods that I had been in several times with groups of children- building g shelters, using mirrors to view the world as a mouse, an owl or a hawk. Looking to match plants with colour swatches and of course making toast over a camp fire!
None of that today as I continued along quite a narrow path, definitely there but not well used. I would eventually come out on the Wantage to Newbury ‘back’ road and go straight across. surprised to see these flowers out and then in contrast a carpet of fallen leaves.
The path opposite stretches out across an open field and several sheep turn to stare at me! I’m really surprised to see relatively young lambs and I wonder when they were born? Is this a new trend due to hot dry summers and lack of rain? The path emerges onto the road as I walk through Farnborough village and past the house with its haha and rather splendid red tree.
The map helps explain my slightly odd route. I walk through the village and then look for the track across the fields which is very clear At the junction I’m going to turn left back up towards the Ridgeway, I have turned right here before and gone down to West Isley. These really are old pathways although on this occasion I’m not using ‘Old Road’. The palette of the landscape is changing but there is still a good deal of green and some confusion as to the season! I’m always slightly in awe of the openness of this area.
As I get closer up to the ridgeway there is more estate management and signs to keep to the bridle way! One fright when a pheasant suddenly flies up less than a couple of metres in front of me, I really must try not to scream in such situations! The weather is clouding over a bit but no rain although that which has fallen has made for a few muddy patches along my way.
My path comes out onto the Ridgeway directly opposite to where I will descend- one of my reasons for wanting to walk a stretch earlier! This isn’t the most comfortable path to walk down, a winding steepish route with an uneven stony track which once past Ginge cottages comes out on to the road.
As I approach Lockinge Church I could have taken the easy way home but I was enjoying being out too much so an old familiar route through by the church, over to the back of Ardington and past the house. Pub not open when I got there and I wondered if the boys had been successful. Just couldn’t resist the climb up into the woods and through the Millenium stones. Not sure why the map tracker stopped before I got back home but I obviously did return!
24 kilometres today. I was welcomed at home by my son and one friend who had stayed the previous night. The other had departed back to Cheltenham but a different one had arrived. I do miss the buzz of a through flow of young people that used to happen so frequently. They found it hard to believe that I’d been walking all that time whilst they’d fitted in lunch at a pub and returning to the house!!
A good walk though and pleased to be back out into familiar territory – there’s always something new to see.
Marion's 50 Walk Challenge 