Road to Home 2022 Day 7: Ollerton - Oxton Hill

25 km

You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath not to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you.

- Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

A day of walking through the fields on the Robin Hood Way, and then along the Southwell Trail, a bicycle path following the route of a disused railway line. 

In the UK, farmers are obliged to allow walkers to cross their fields if they are on the route of an established public footpath or bridleway. A passage must be kept clear and if there is a fence or wall around the field, there must be a gate, or steps, allowing people but not animals through. Often the footpath skirts the edge of the field, but other times it runs right through the middle, and in this case the farmer leaves a gap unplanted, or cut short. This makes it very easy to see where you are meant to pass through. 

Though in some cases it's not so easy, as in this field of rape I ploughed through today... The farmer only left a strip about a metre wide unplanted, and the tall plants simply grew wider to close up the gap! I explored alternative routes but there were none, so I had to dive right in and plough my way through the shoulder-high plants. I'll be finding yellow petals in my clothes for days!!! 

Another plant that grows shoulder-high in England is stinging nettles. Normally found close to towns and human settlements, they are even capable of stinging right through your clothes, and are quite a problem when walking on a particularly neglected bit of path, or on the shoulder of a road. 

Always wear long trousers for walking in the UK, and check carefully when making a toilet stop in the bushes!!! 😅

On the other hand, I have not had any problems with dogs. British dogs are much polite and reserved than their continental counterparts; I have only been barked at once or twice in a week of walking! 

Sheep don't come with dogs, as they do in Italy, so it's a pleasure to share a field with them. 

These unusual brown sheep share a field with some confused-looking alpacas who appear to be wondering what they are doing in Nottinghamshire. 

After the fields my route took me onto the Southwell Trail, a cycling track along a disused railway line. I was glad I was down at the bottom of a railway culvert because there seemed to be a target practice range nearby, and it was very busy on a Sunday afternoon. At one point the gunshots were so close I could smell the gunpowder! But I assumed things were organised in such a way that the shooters would not be aiming downwards into a railway culvert, especially one with a popular public cycling path at the bottom of it! 

Where the Southwell Trail came out at Farnsfield was the ideal picnic spot, a table on the grass in the shade of a willow tree. 

I was carrying a lot of groceries from the Tesco's in Ollerton, and I was glad to get rid of some of the weight, and convert it into calories! 

Another good thing about walking in Britain is the availability of a wide range of decent inexpensive ready-made foods from the supermarket, so you can at least partially compensate for the higher cost of accommodation by saving on restaurant meals, while taking advantage of the country's many picturesque picnic spots. Drinking fountains, however, are extremely rare, so it's important to remember to fill up your water bottles before leaving your accommodation in the morning! 

About half of the weight of my pack must have been food today, as I was also carrying dinner and breakfast supplies. My self-catering accommodation was the most fun yet: a "shepherd's hut" on wheels, like a gypsy caravan, on a farm on Oxton Hill, above the village of Oxton. 

Pond View Shepherd's Hut

I was so tired by the time I reached the hut that I was delighted to see that there was no internet connection: a great excuse to do nothing all evening but lie on the grass by the pond listening to the sound of the wind in the trees, then eat the dinner I had been carrying on my back all day, draw the curtains of my caravan, and go straight to bed!