9 miles and still standing!
Sunday was a surprisingly good day for walking, despite the very high temperatures. I planned to walk from Brigstock to Stanion and back via Geddington Chase. This is a walk from Walking Close to Rockingham Forest by Clive Brown, another in the Walking Close to... series.
I parked at the Fermyn Woods Country Park, which charges £3 to park all day. I was a bit alarmed by the car I parked next to, an old VW - its fan was running full tilt although the owners were nowhere in sight, and it was throwing out intense heat. I wondered whether I would come back to a burnt out wreck!
The first part of the walk through Brigstock is uninspiring, on a housing estate. Once in the fields, the path was fairly easy to find, although one of the stiles was broken (must report that). The path runs beside Harper's Brook for a while, then strikes off across cropped fields. You can see the spire of the church at Stanion for much of the way. I had a bit of a problem just coming into Stanion - someone had put an electric fence around a paddock and cut off the path from the stile out of the field. I had to limbo through the fence - not good for my bad back!
After some more field tracks and paths, I came at last to Geddington Chase and the shade of the trees. I stopped to eat some lunch here. A noise in the trees made me look up - there were squirrels in the tree tops. It reminded me of the advert where the squirrels are after the nuts!
The tracks through the forest are on wide rides. Once I turned on the return leg to Brigstock, I found myself on a lane called Clay Dick - no idea why! Parts of this are sadly very badly damaged by motorbikes (I think!) with huge ruts and hollows, some still muddy even after weeks of no rain. I did spot a Fragrant Orchid - not sure about the identification, as I didn't smell it at the time!
I also saw a tree that looked like something out of Lord of the Rings!
I was very hot and tired when I got back to the Country Park, but thankfully the teashop was still open and I had a bottle of cold water (I'd long since finished all mine) and then a pot of tea and a scone - lovely!
That lot netted me 24450 steps. I'll bank some of that for the rest of this week - no time to get out at lunchtime as my appointments are back to back.