Walk 10 Newtown Linford to Mountsorrel

Sunday 21st October 2012

Cripes!  It's a bit cold and foggy and me without a coat.  Anyway here we are again Rounding Leicester as Autumn closes in on us.  Not sure it is quite the day for your poorly roving news hound to be out in the cold and damp [cough..cough..cough] but having been forced out of my nice warm bed at a crazy hour on a Sunday here we are.

You will notice that we are one short - Ev decided to stay in bed and keep warm, but the rest of us are ready to go.  This being Bradgate Park there are two OWP in the team today with Jane also carrying her camera.

And heavens above there seems to be an awful lot of people walking the Round Leicester already today.

The park looked as if it was cut in two by the fog, to the right bright blue sky and to the left nothing but fog.

By now we had lost OWP1 who was more interested in photos than walking.

So we left him behind and hoped he would not catch us up.

Which, sadly, in the end he did

Meanwhile we had lost OWP2 who had spotted ruins and was off.

These are the ruins of a Tudor house and was the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey.  For more information on Bradgate Park go here.  Turning round there were deer everywhere.

Soon we were heading off towards Old John and what looked like a blue sky day.

Here we are striding across the moors towards Old John (hidden by cloud or wearing red), Rob meanwhile was in the trees looking for "Oh Dear" (not sure if that is a nice way of saying something else or not...).

The climb up to Old John is possibly the toughest on the whole of the walk (look for an update after Borrough Fort).  91m up to 207m in just about a mile, so not Everest but steep for Leicestershire.

Past expensive sheep and onwards towards the summit.

Here we are taking a bit of a breather near the summit.  It seems Rob has found one cache already.

Straight ahead is our final destination (and only 14 miles away), however we needed to go right from this point.

Not a still from a 80's pop video just Old John.
 
Going down away from Old John your befuddled news hound got even more confused than normal and went off with another group of people, which caused much hilarity and ended up with me being put on a tether.

Sadly after Old John the weather closed in again, the blue sky vanished and we were left with a bleak greyness.  Even so the humans cheered up when they walked past a pub...and after a short debate decided to enter the hallowed portals.

As you can see it would be better to say almost all of them cheered up...the chairs were slightly damp after the fog.

Still we were close to the beach, and although skinny dipping should have been out of the question I still did not have a coat.

Here I am all excited about going on the beach...once again I have fallen for dastardly human humour.

Whilst drinking beer Jane even managed to get this photo of the OWP...

Although there seems to have been a thumb print on the lens, ah well maybe next time :)

After a pint and crisps (humans) or nothing (Stanley) we set off again towards Swithland Reservoir awarding three chips out of ten as we went. It was pretty bleak with almost full cloud cover but at least the ground was not too muddy.

As we walked the sun gradually began to break through again.

And this is the photo looking back to Woodhouse Eaves.

From here we began to get back onto the clay soil that made walking so muddy early on in our walks on the Round Leicester.  Through a maize field we began to slip and slide towards the Great Central railway.

As we got to the railway we heard a whistle and so we waited for a train (sad or what?).

 

I am too young to know what a steam train is, but you would have thought some other people should have known better.

 Eventually the train arrived...

and went again...

 Was it all worth it?  And so that was the end of the excitement and on with the walk.  Next stop - water.

 and near the reservoir another cache.  Here I am doing my best pointer impression, and John and Rob are doing their best "ignore the dog" impression.  Walk on.

Swithland Reservoir itself was as still as a mill pond.

And offered the OWP's another photographic opportunity.  So here we go...

So with that all over it was time for lunch 

 
and a final stroll into Mountsorrel along tarmac roads.

Looking back across Swithland Reservoir from the top of Mountsorrel.
 

A happy band finally arrive at the promised bench (about 2 miles beyond where they were told it was).  After that it was just a short walk back to the car parked in Mountsorrel.

A walk of thirds this one.  The Bradgate part was worthy of five muddy paws; the Woodhouse Eves to Swithland four muddy paws, and the remainder three muddy paws.  So let's say overall four muddy paws for the whole walk.

There were five caches in total dotted along the walk.

So that was 8.54 miles, bringing the total to 85.58 miles walked so far.

For the first time we have a walk profile that is not almost entirely flat.

For the gpx track of this walk go here (to download the gpx click on actions and then download - make sure you run a virus check before using the gpx file as it is held on a public server).

Next time: The A6, Cossington (pub!), A Roman road (the A46), Rearsby (pub) and no doubt lots of mud.

c. Stanley The Dog 2012

Walk 9 Bagworth to Newtown Linford

Sunday 30th September 2012

As a dark day dawned it was time for your roving news hound to rove somemore in his quest to go "Round Leicester".  I was thinking of nipping off to see Dicky III first, bones mmmmm.  But given that I am only just off my own death bed I decided to give that a miss.  Boy have I been ill, not that you would know it from the photo below, but I thought I would let you know that I have been unwell.  Last time I'll mention it...cough, cough, cough.

I have absolutely no idea what Gillian (centre) is doing in this picture, but as you can see we are all present and correct and wrapped up against the elements, except for your humble reporter who was shivering so much that the OWP had to bump up the speed of the photo to make sure I wasn't just a blur.

Anyway you are welcome to Bagworth, and as a reminder of the industrial heritage around these parts:

And so off we went.  Firstly past Holy Rood Church in Bagworth, which is a little different from the majority of village churches in Leicestershire.

This new church was built in the 1960's, but, with falling attendances it's future is now in doubt.

Going out of the village we crossed the first ploughed field of the whole walk so far.  Thankfully the ground was quite dry - hardly any mud at all :(

And from there into the National Forest, which, to be fair, is slightly more forest-like here than it has been on previous walks.

John takes the instructions to a whole new level when we cross the line.  Although it does not say anything, I'm pretty sure you should do the "stop, look, listen" bit before you get onto the lines, not while you are standing on them.

We also tried to persuade Gillian to let us tie her to the tracks, but with no luck.  And we had brought rope and chain with us just for a good photo - ah well...

As we ventured on the traffic noise increased and we knew we were getting closer to the M1, crossing over a stile gave us our first view of it since walk 5 on the 24th June.

Once under the tunnel we were back on "our" side of Leicestershire with its rolling hills, sunshine everyday and fair maidens pulling pints with a smile.  And so with that thought we set off for Markfield....

Here I am keen as mustard to get to Markfield - am I allowed to say I was disappointed when I got there?

Oh, and it would be nice to have a rest - cough, cough.  Pub ahoy...

One thing we all missed at this point was Rob finding a giraffe, but losing a walking pole. I think the giraffe is something to doing with caching, and the walking pole old age.

No pictures of the pub, all I remember was it was pretty cold sitting outside next to the pet graveyard.  No idea what to give as a mark for the pub, so lets say five chips out of ten.

And then on we went, through another glorious bit of Leicestershire.  Jane was not too keen to have her photo taken here for some reason.

At least by the time we went under the A50 I had my coat on - beautiful, warm as toast.

Except that the humans thought this happy look meant I was too warm, so...

"You can poke it up your rucksack matey...I'm coming no where near you"

I hate him, I really do.  I feel like stripping his coat off and saying "there what do you think of that".  Cough, cough, cough...

Anyway off we go hurtling towards Newtown Linford and Old John (the tower not the participant).

There looks like there is a divergence of views on which way to go here.  If you are following the right path follow Gillian, if on the other hand you are looking for caches follow Rob.

Sometimes you do find odd things out on walks.  Rob had already found a giraffe and now a pig - only good for pork scratchings I thought.

Well that is going to be tricky to top really.  So let's just say - and then we were in Newtown Linford with their scarecrow festival...

Now I am not implying that there is any relationship between the photo above and scarecrows - I thought I should make that very clear.  So having crossed the stile all that was left was to walk down Main Street to the car park and the end of our walk.  

It was really a bit too dark and cold [cough,cough,cough...] to qualify for a five muddy paw marks, although it would be a good one to do when there was a bit of sunshine around.  Anyway I decide four muddy paws for this bit.  There were twelve caches in total dotted along the walk.

So for those who are into the stats side of the game, that was a pathetic 6.48 miles, which brings the total up to 77.04 miles completed.

For the gpx track of this walk go here (to download the gpx click on actions and then download - make sure you run a virus check before using the gpx file as it is held on a public server).

Next time: Old John (both of them I guess), Woodhouse Eaves (pub), Swithland Reservoir (named after the infamous garage in Mountsorrel), and Mountsorrel.