Road to Home 2022 Day 16: Harrold - Cranfield

19 km

The trick of successful walking is knowing when to stop

 - Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island

Today was a good day to stop early. The sky was overcast when I set off from Harrold, where my hostess Sue kindly dropped me off, but it had rained overnight and the grass was very wet. I was wearing my waterproof trousers and Sealskinz waterproof socks, but they didn't help with the mud... Every time I crossed a field I could feel myself growing taller and taller as the mud caked on the soles of my boots! Periodically I had to stop and knock the heels of my boots against each other or against a post to remove a few inches of mud. This made for slow going, and I was glad I had only a short stage to walk today!

I passed through some pretty little villages along the way, Carlton, Turvey and Astwood, where I took a short break on a bench across from the village hall. Soon after I set off again the big black clouds on the horizon blew over and rain began to fall. 

No sunshine... But free sunflowers! 

Here comes the rain! 

I walked briskly along Shire Lane into Cranfield and arrived just as the rain stopped and the sun came out.

Cranfield is a student town; in fact the whole town seems to be one big university campus! I located some outdoor tables under a platform roof outside a student cafeteria and sat down to peel off my waterproof plastic layers, wet, muddy and studded with bits of vegetation, and tuck them away in the outside pocket of my pack before going into the cafeteria for lunch. By the time I had eaten and written this blog entry, it was time to check in to my accommodation at Mitchell Hall, the lodging run by the Cranfield School of Management conference centre. 

I doubt they will have seen many guests arrive as muddy as me!!! 

Student cafeteria lunch

Mitchell Hall

My room for tonight

Road to Home 2022 Day 15: Higham Ferrers - Harrold

Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.

- John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)

 

28 km

I have had the good fortune on this Long Walk to lodge with people who rise early in the morning, like myself, and my Servas hosts Sue and Elaine are no exception: at 6:30 Sue was already up and bustling about getting breakfast for me and for the little dog, Charlie. The route of Charlie's morning walk was modified to accompany me back to the Nene Way, where we parted ways and I followed the river to Wellingborough, then crossed over the bridge into Irchester Country Park, a large park on the site of a former ironstone quarry. 

The big loop through the park was made necessary by a closed footbridge across the Nene River in front of Chester House. Tony reported the bridge closure in his 2014 description of the trail, and I had assumed the bridge would have been repaired and reopened by now, eight years later; but it was still blocked off, and overgrown with climbing plants. I couldn't complain though, as the route through the park was beautiful and took me to The Quarryman's Rest Cafe for a cuppa, a blueberry muffin, and the use of clean public toilets. 

Chester House and the closed footbridge 

One of those odd corners of England where country charm meets modern industry 

Canal boats and flour mills (old and new) 

Wellingborough Embankment is home to the largest colony of swans I have ever seen 

There was something unusual about the park, and I soon realised what it was: it was full of school-aged children, on a Monday morning! It must be mid-term break in the UK.

I found my way out of the maze of pathways in the park and crossed a wheat field with Irchester church spire directly ahead of me.

Like all towns with chester or caster in their names, Irchester was a Roman fort, and after leaving the town I walked in a perfectly straight line along the route of the original Roman road. At first it was a paved road, but then it turned into a byway through the woods, wide and absolutely dead straight.

I turned off here and onto the Three Shires Way, then around an airfield and along another beautiful if rather muddy bridle path through the woods to Odell, where I stopped for a picnic lunch.

Glebe Lake in the rain

I shouldn't have stopped for a picnic lunch, because if I hadn't I would have been in Harrold before it started raining! At first it was a gentle sprinke, so I put on my rain poncho, and I arrived at the café in Harrold Country Park just as a deluge and hailstorm began! But it only lasted a few minutes, during which I waited under the café roof, and when it let up I walked across into Harrold and took a look around the village. Then I spread out my rain poncho over a wet lawn chair by the duck pond and waited for the bus back to Higham Ferrers, where my kind hostesses were busy preparing dinner. 

Waiting out the deluge 

Harrold village green

Road to Home 2022 Day 14: Great Oakley - Irthlingborough

30.5 km

The word pilgrim comes from the medieval peregrine, which in turn derives from the Latin per ager, meaning "over the fields". And I spent all day today going over the fields. I shall spare you more pictures of wheat fields, but here are some of the delightful thatched cottages of the villages of Weekley and Warkton.

The tea room in Warkton was closed, so I continued on my way back into the fields and sat down on the grass to eat some cheese and crackers from my backpack. As I was getting started walking again, along came a couple with a large pair of pruning shears, a pair of colourful little buckets of the type used by children to make sandcastles on the beach, and a very, very large dog. I asked if they were doing some maintenance work on the trail, but that was not their mission. "We're guerilla planters," they confided. They were out planting native black poplar trees, a species almost extinct in Northhamptonshire. Without finding out first whom the land belonged to and whether they wanted black poplar trees planting on it. "Now that you know, we shall have to kill you," they joked (I hope). They had succesfully planted a dozen black poplars and went regularly to check up on them and water them from the nearby stream. 

Following the guerilla planters

I walked with the guerilla planters over a couple more fields before our paths parted and they explained the rest of the way to Cranford to me. The teahouse in Cranford was also closed, but I had a look around the village.

Jubilee garden decorations in Cranford

Dovecote

A bridge built to celebrate another queen's jubilee 

Fairy-tale house (it's for sale!) 

Then it was back across the fields to Great Addington and Little Addington (which, curiously, seemed the bigger of the two). 

The final part of today's stage followed the Nene Way, along the Nene River into Irthlingborough. 

The Nene Way came out at a roundabout where my hostesses for the evening, Sue and Elaine, picked me up and took me to their home in the neighbouring village of Higham Ferrers. Sue and Elaine are world travellers, Quakers and members of Servas, an association for the promotion of peace and understanding through travel to which I also belong. and they have agreed to host me not only tonight but tomorrow night too, as I couldn't find anywhere to stay at the end of tomorrow's stage. So tomorrow I will walk with only a lighter pack, and get the bus back in the evening. In the meantime, I have finally put my clothes through a proper wash in a washing machine, instead of just washing them out by hand in a hotel sink! 

Sue, Elaine and Charlie, who wouldn't stay still!