Road to Home 2022 Day 10: Hungerton - Swayfield

27 km

It is always hard to see the purpose in wilderness wanderings until after they are over.

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

After a good night's sleep in the farmhouse I woke up early and got onto the wi-fi to research the next few days' accommodations. This requires a lot of effort on a route like this: it's not like walking the Camino de Santiago, or the Via Francigena, where all the research has been done for you and compiled into downloadable lists, or even an app... Here, I have found that the best approach is to load the map of the route into Google maps, count approximately twenty kilometres along the route from the place where I will be beginning on a particular day, and then search for hotels before and after that point, within one or two kilometres from the path. I also try to memorise the names of a few suitable villages, go onto airbnb and look there, and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised to find someone in even the smallest villages on or near the way who rents a room! 

Such as Dairy Farm Stables in Hungerton! Here my hostess, Hilary, instructed me as to the direct route back to The Drift and I continued walking along this historic path as far as Saltby Airfield. The footpath took me right across the airfield, which is used only by gliders; there were none flying on this wild and windy day. Saltby is where the C-47s took off to take 950 American parachuters to the Cherbourg Peninsula on D-Day, June 6 1944, and where Operation Market Garden began in September 1944 in a failed attempt to take the bridge at Arnhem. You can read all about the operation in a very good book called A Bridge Too Far.

I returned to The Drift, but after Saltby airfield it becomes a dirt track which is uneven and muddy due to abuse by off-road vehicles and dirt bikes. 

A particularly bad spot on The Drift

A few kilometres further along, The Drift crossed a highway and became a paved road. It continues all the way to Thistleton, and I'm not sure whether it is paved all the rest of the way, because Bernard's Way leaves it here and swings over to the east. My route over the next few days will be a zig-zag one, heading east to Vaudey Abbey and then back west to Pipewell Abbey, the idea behind St. Bernard's Way being to trace the route the monks would have taken from Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire to the annual general meeting of their order at Citeaux Abbey in France. Seeing as Britain is criss-crossed with thousands of footpaths, I probably could have found a more direct route south to Canterbury, but I would have had to do a lot of research and purchase a lot of Ordnance Survey Maps to string together all the footpaths and public rights of way to make up a new route of my own. Besides, I like the idea of walking in the footsteps of the Cistercian monks, who proceeded from abbey to abbey, checking up on things and adding more members from the abbeys along the way to their number as they proceeded toward their motherhouse in France. 

St. Bernard's Way is in any case a more direct route than the only other ready-made, pre-packaged alternative route between Leeds and Canterbury, the British portion of European long distance walking route number 2, which swings westward towards Manchester before heading to the southeast, and would have added at least another four days of walking! 

I have so far had no major difficulties with the route mapped out as St. Bernard's Way, but after leaving The Drift I crossed the fields on some very under-used and overgrown footpaths. I was glad to be wearing my waterproof plastic over-trousers; though the wind had dried the grass after yesterday's rain showers, at least there was one more layer between my skin and the stinging nettles! 

Tony's description of the route stated that he had come up against an obstacle here, but I expected that as that was written in 2014, the way might have been opened up by now, seeing as it is supposed to be a public footpath. However I also came up against an impenetrable hedge, and had to take a detour, squeezing through slightly less impenetrable hedges, skirting fields and clambering over a gate, coming out on the road to Woolsthorpe (not the same one as yesterday!) 

I followed the road into the village of Woolsthorpe by Colsterworth, birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton. All the streets had names like Newton Way, Isaac Court, and Apple Tree Lane. 🍏

Woolsthorpe Manor, where the great scientist lived, is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, which is a pity because it's a National Trust property and I could have got in free with my FAI membership! I sat on a bench in front of the village hall and ate my lunch instead. 

A sprinkling of rain convinced me it was time to move on, so I donned my bright yellow rain poncho and continued through the town of Colsterworth, only to come up against an obstacle of a different kind: the A1. A roads are not motorways but they are major highways, and this one seemed as  important as the name A1 suggested! It was a dual carriageway with guardrails: the sort of road you would probably be arrested for crossing, if you survived that is! I took a detour to a flyover/bridge with a sidewalk and cycling track, coming out on the other side in an area with a Macdonalds and a Burger King where lorry/truck drivers were busy refuelling themselves and their vehicles. 

I found a farm track that took me back to my route, and was instantly whisked away from the world of Macdonalds and dual carriageways and back into the world of nature when a grouse, startled by my passing, emerged from the brush, hissing, and walked in circles around me two or three times, giving me plenty of time to whip out my phone and photograph it from all angles! 

However the relief at being back in the countryside soon wore off when I found myself before a wheatfield in which the way had not been cleared; another detour was in order to get around this and regain the marked footpath. A field or two later, a sign warned that there was a bull in the next field. I stopped to take a break and watch the cattle to see if it was true - when I walked Hadrian's Wall in 2018 some Englishmen and experienced walkers told me farmers sometimes put up a "bull in the field" sign to discourage walkers from walking over their property, even when there isn't one. 

But when the cattle came over to take a look at me, curious as cattle always are - or maybe just bored of standing around eating grass all day - there he was: a massive bull, without horns and perhaps ageing, but muscular and gigantic. As I stood watching, in awe at his bulk, safely on the other side of the fence, he turned around so that his rear end was facing me and let loose a stream of liquid manure. 

"All right, then, if you're going to be like that, I'm not sure I even want to walk over your field," I told him, and went off in search of an alternative way around. Just over the other side of the hedge I found a grassy track dotted with buttercups. Much better! It led me through another (bull-less) field and then to a stile that led back into the field where the cattle were - but at the opposite end. From this distance, I doubted they could even see me, so I walking briskly across the bottom corner of the field and out via a dirt road, with a cattle grid of course! 

The dirt road took me to the railway line just outside the charmingly named village of Burton Coggles, where I turned onto a footpath that led - on well-marked and cleared pathways through fields without animals - directly to The Royal Oak, the pub in Swayfield where I had booked a room. 

I highly recommend The Royal Oak if you ever find yourself walking through Swayfield! My room was spacious, by UK standards, and came with tea and coffee and biscuits, and even had a proper bathtub, instead of just a shower! Nothing like a good hot soak and a cup of tea after a long day trudging through the fields of Lincolnshire. Followed by a pint of John Smith's, a cup of soup and a tuna and cheese toastie!