Not a walk, walkabout in Long Eaton

Date: 2012-03-16

Region: Derbyshire
From: Long Eaton

Walk :  Figure of 8

OS Sheet: Explorer 259 & 260

Parking at: On road

Grid: -

Distance: 7.6 mls 12.25 km

Height Gain: 60ft 18m

Height Loss: 60ft 18m
Walking With: -

Notes: Mainly road and canal/river tow path, some fields one or two stiles and gates

Route
I’m not writing up the route for this one as what I did was so convoluted. The route on the map above is a normalised version of the route I actually took.  I feel this actually makes a worthwhile walk with plenty of scope for extending or amending. If you disagree post a comment!


Journey

Last Friday found me back in Long Eaton, this time not on a walk with Andy, but taking my car to the garage for some works, leaving me four hours to kill. So I went for a  VERY DIFFERENT walk, not in the hills or countryside but around a busy town with  nothing planned, just taking turns left or right on a whim. However while the turns were random I did have an overall plan.  I’ve recently joined a Camera Group (Club sounds far too structured for us) so I was out to get photo’s for this week’s two Projects, Contrast and Foreground and despite the dull grey flat light Long Eaton provided a range of good photo opportunities particularly for the contrast theme.

I wandered down long rows of terraced houses dating back into the eighteen hundreds, past pre First World War houses, 1930’s houses all bays and gables and along roads of more modern properties. Intermingled amongst the houses I found factories and mills, workshops and yards, getting small glimpses of life here a hundred or more years ago.

Nearer the town centre some of the terraces and factories had been removed, others remain. In between new roads have been built, pubs converted to night clubs, new offices, retail units, private housing and workshops built, post WW2, producing a somewhat bizarre mish-mash of styles, colours and materials.

 If you were just walking from car to shop and back this area might be dull and boring but with a camera looking for Contrast and Foreground shots , plus thinking about Perspective and Experimentation, last week’s Project, along with what bloody F stop do I need at this shutter speed  it was interesting.

There was a colourful and busy small market along one of the pedestrianized streets where I had couple of conversations about ‘what was I taking pictures of''.

 I also went in to café for a coffee and a cake, not bad.  Earlier I’d walked through a graveyard where I saw the saddest Contrast of the day, the grave of a 5 week old baby next to one of a 96 year old man.

Moving on I made my way to the Canal, on the way crossing over my earlier track, and headed south towards the River Trent, meeting a fisherman, three dog walkers, one cyclist and one canal boat moving and several moored, plus a swan.

On reaching the Trent I turned east walking along the well surfaced path to the Cranfleet Lock.

As I continued east along the track I was nearly marmalised by two separate groups of 10 to 15 cyclists running a couple of minutes apart, all talking and generally totally unaware that anyone else might be on the path. I ended up some 3 foot, (sounds further than a metre) onto the grass, and not one of the b.ggers even gave a Hi as they passed.

I was fuming and chuntering so much I didn’t notice that I’d passed the path I need to take back to Long Eaton and I’d walked a good mile further before I realised and walked back to path going in the right direction. The OS map I was using is slightly out of date as it shows large open fields and a small pond in reality there are  huge water filled gravel pits and a small field.

I had a great day, walked nearly eight miles, got cold, warmed up again took 30 photos and will be submitting the first one I took on the day for the Contrast competition. Others are about dotted above.

Simple because I had no destination, no end point and no specific time constraint, I feel that everything I saw and everyone I met were seen differently, carrying a camera with the aim of taking photographs of specific types seem to create this slightly detached feeling. Or perhaps it was because I was doing something so free on a workday.

I must try this random walking again it was fun.

Market Bosworth

Date: 2012-02-26

Region: Leicestershire
From: Market Bosworth

Walk :  Circular

OS Sheet: Explorer 232

Parking at: Bosworth Country Park

Grid: 412032

Distance: 8.10 mls, 13.00 km 

Height Gain: 400 ft,  122 m

Height Loss: 400 ft, 122 m
Walking With: Mrs G & Katie

Notes: Mainly fields and grassed towpath, few roads or stiles, some gates

Route

From the car park head west through the town to the School, turn right up the side of the school, left down the back, across the golf course to the railway bridge and on to the canal. Follow to the bridge south of Shenton, leave canal, over bridge to the Station, Ambion Hill, Sutton Cheney, the Lawns, north up the side of Spring Wood to Bosworth Park and back to car park

Journey

Sundays walk around Market Bosworth was a typical first proper walk of the year, decided at the last minute, too much gear packed in the rucksack, in case it was cold, got lost getting there, the cameras battery was flat and we (I) had several navigation faffs on a straight forward walk.  However, the sun shone, the sky was blue, occasionally, and the wind was not too cold. It was lovely to be out on something other than a dog walk around our local fields.

From the start we played spot the signs of spring, snowdrops , bunches of crocuses, one daffodil, buds on trees and hedgerows and a cheeky robin serenading us at lunchtime, golfers all over the golf course and barges were moving along the canal.

We parked at the car park on the edge of Bosworth Country Park a large area of what I would call heathland but others might call a park. Either way it must be a real asset to the residents and visitors to Market Bosworth.

The town centre is small and neat and the square was very full of traders and shoppers enjoying the sunshine, the banter, examining the goods, buying and selling and absorbing the smells of frying Angus burgers and onions.

Heading downhill we reached the school, walking along its side and down the track to its rear and into a golf course where we had the pleasure of watching a small plane taxi along a grass strip (not on the golf course) turn, and take off, flying south west.

I had a good look at the golf course as we walked and could not help but notice that it was undulating, but in an unnatural sort of way. Some humps were too high and too steep, plus the the transitions between humps and hollows and the flatter areas were unpleasing to the eye. Plainly it had been not built on the original fields, even if they had an industrial heritage. Later in the walk, a local confirmed that several million (!) tonnes of soil etc. had been shipped in to form the golf course.

Our route crossed over the Battlefield Steam Railway line, shame there’s nothing happening on it today,  then we crossed the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal and turned south along the towpath towards Shenton

Clearly the spring weather had bought people out walking and cycling and at every mooring point several of the boats had people on, most we assumed giving them a look over and tidy after the winter and getting ready for the season ahead, although one or two were moving on. We stopped and chatted to a few of the owners including those on a barge heading south, who kept pace with us for over half a mile as we walked and talked, mainly about our dog and their dogs.

 If you've read our only Blog in January, I mentioned that as I was being made redundant and taking early retirement we were thinking of getting dog, possibly a Labrador or maybe a Cairn Terrier. Well after much debate the Cairn won by a short head, and we picked up a rescue dog, Katie, from Glossop on a very, very wet and misty evening in early February. Katie is four years old, she has settled in very well, she’s friendly, usually quiet but with a loud bark. On the down side she gets car sick and we cannot let her off the lead, because if she gets out she is off at twenty miles an hour hunting every scent she can find. We have a lot of training to do.

In the past I have, on several occasions, stated that I do not like walking along canal towpaths, because they are boring and because they are so flat and so even that you walk faster than usual and every pace is the same length, resulting in sore muscles and possible injury. Yet here I am walking a canal towpath again. My only excuse is that in order to make a good walk of about the desired distance the only alternative route was along roads. So the canal was the lesser of two evils. Also it is grass, not paved and is rarely even.

We stopped at Shenton Station spend a good half hour sitting in the sunshine with a cup of tea and a Kit Kat admiring the Crocuses and listening to a disembodied voice describing how he and his mates were getting ready for the mornings battle, sharpening swords, preparing their armour and other things, over and over again. This was our introduction to Market Bosworth Battlefield.

As we proceeded up to Ambion Hill we listened to several more voices and read a bunch of explanation boards including a big one that said something along the lines of: We have told people for years that the battle of Bosworth (1485) was fought over there, now after a proper archaeological  study, the battle actually happen in a completely different direction. As a result some of the signs and explanation boards are being moved or replaced. While I found this mildly amusing,they are doing the right thing as this battle was an important English battle, a turning point in English history and even if a few of the details have moved, it is still the battlefield and Ambion Hill is a great place to see it and learn about it from. 

The walk back to Market Bosworth was spent talking as we walked with Tom and Pat, from Markfield. Tom and Pat are two charming and well travel people, with whom we had much in common.  It was a great pleasure sharing experiences, ideas and plans with them.

As I said at the start my camera battery was dead so I used the iphone for a few shots. I apologise for the lack of photos and the poor quality of these but whenever I pointed the phone to take a photo the only thing I could see was my reflection, very disconcerting.