Donington on Bain to Woodhall Spa

Today was meant to be a long one. I measured it on my phone and it was nineteen miles. Johnny’s feet weren’t up to nineteen miles. I’d done a bit off research in the evening and decided we could walk to Belchford, get a bus to Horncastle, then walk to Woodhall Spa, cutting six or seven miles off the total.

The only thing was you had to ring the bus up and say you wanted to catch it, otherwise it wouldn’t bother going into Belchford. And when I tried in the morning I couldn’t get through.

Then David, our host, said he was driving to Horncastle and would we like a lift, and we said yes please, a lift as far as Belchford would be great, then we could walk the rest of the way, cutting a different six miles off the distance.

But that’s not what David did. He drove us fast down A roads through Lincolnshire farmland, and before we knew it he pulled up at the side of the road and said ‘I’ll drop you here’ and we were in Horncastle. Which meant that we'd missed Belchford entirely and we only had seven miles still to go.

I was discombobulated. I’d kind of thought Horncastle would be a changing point where the scenery became more fenlike and less woldy, and now we’d whizzed past the last of the wolds in a car. And although I suppose we could have gone backwards, it seemed daft to go in the wrong direction.

Horncastle is made up of more antique shops that you’ve ever seen in your life – nearly every shop is an antique shop. Johnny’s eyes lit up. We could spend the time here, he said. What, with a dog and huge rucksacks, you must be joking. I humphed out of the town, past a church and a sports centre and beside a defunct canal where a family of swans tried to cheer me up.

I was right though. It was different here.

Most of the walk was along a disused railway which was decorated with artworks, and ridden along by families of cyclists.

Then after a short stretch of road we were on the golf course of the National Golf Centre Academy, which was so lovely it almost made me want to take up golf. Well, almost nearly. And where we narrowly escaped death by golf ball.

At the other end we came out into leafy, wealthy Woodhall Spa, Despite the short distance we were all feeling footsore and tired, so after a drink in the pub garden, we checked into our B&B. I spent the latter part of the afternoon reading Cafe Assassin by Michael Stewart, which is certainly kinder on the legs than the Viking Way.

7 miles

Tealby to Donington on Bain

The lovely Irene packed us into her tiny car – four people, three rucksacks, two dogs, one of each of the latter underneath the parcel shelve in the boot – and drove us back to the path in the picture book village of Tealby.

Irene has an Olde Worlde sign in her breakfast room saying No Singing, No Dancing, No Swearing. We spent the first half mile of the walk thinking up the Breakfast Themed Songs we might have sung if we were feeling rebellious. I started off with renditions reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan and Rogers and Hammerstein, but soon Johnny joined in with the punk version, followed swiftly by hip hop, blues, rockabilly, opera. Wilf did death metal and country. We laughed ourselves silly on the way up Bully Hill, which is a respectable hill for  Lincolnshire.

The cows stared at us.

Soon the path turned left along the fields and we were joined, on the other side of the fence, by a crowd of lively bullocks, who kept pace, running and bucking and scaring the life out of Betty who ran ahead with her tail between her legs.

We saw a hare which ran towards us, then stopped and posed in profile for a few seconds before disappearing into the wheat. I didn’t want to spoil the moment by fiddling with my phone, so no pictures I’m afraid. It was the first of four hares we saw today, although one was already roadkill.

We hadn’t much food with us, but that was OK because four miles in was Ludford, a big village, bound to have a shop. Wrong! It had a pub which was closed down, a school – also closed down, a churchyard, a house with the words fish and chips painted on the side which wasn’t a fish and chip shop, and another pub which only opened in the evenings. I accosted a man and he laughed and said the shop closed down years ago. But he took me to his house and gave me a bottle of water and told me the pub owners used to live in Hebden Bridge.

When I returned with the water Johnny was chatting to the pub owner who was wearing a top which said Stubbing Wharf on the front – the name of our local in Hebden by the canal. She moved away 13 years ago, the year before we arrived.

We walked on. Johnny’s feet were very painful.

We tried various types of road surface.

But none of them made him feel any better.

Though this did make him laugh.

Everything is just so big round here. Huge fields, huge combine harvesters, huge haystacks.

I was enjoying myself. It was more varied than on previous days, with medieval villages, lakes, cows and isolated churches.

Wilf was pleased to see water too.

But we were all glad to get to Donington Bain. The question was – would there be a shop? We found the post office – but it closed on Wednesdays at 1pm. It was 2.15pm. We sighed. Maybe a pub – but no, that was closed too. Maybe a bench where we could sit down – and Hallelujah! – next to the bench was an off licence with a friendly owner who sold us sandwiches and cold drinks. Johnny took off his socks and shoes and another layer of skin.

But we weren’t there yet. After a long trek up a hill ...

... we were on top of the wold...

... where the sheep are in clover. (Sorry no pigs.)

Eventually we arrived at Hideaway Cottage where we have a whole cottage to ourselves. Unfortunately we didn’t think to bring a bottle of wine and it’s too far to a shop, but heyho, there’s ice cream in the freezer.

14 miles

Barnetby le Wold to Tealby

Johnny started the day wondering if he could walk to the end of the drive. He has blisters on the balls of his feet which hurt with every step. He bought new shoes for this walk and hadn’t tested them out. It’s always a good idea to give new shoes a trial run before setting off on something big. Just saying.

Barnetby was a place of many horses, including this chap pretending to be a zebra.

The walk included more field edges, but we had maize and beans today as well as wheat, rape and barley. There was even some pastureland with grazing sheep, and cows in the distance. And one field with a 'humble' monument erected to celebrate a 29 year marriage in 1770.

Today the fields didn’t seem to go on forever.

They were undoubtedly large.

But they were interspersed with little villages full of expensive looking houses, and streams, bridges and ponds between fields.

All the villages ended with the suffix ‘by’ – Bigby, Somerby, Searby, Ormsby, Grasby, Clixby – a sign of its Viking past – and were graced with squat little Norman churches.

At Clixby there was a lovely little chapel where we stopped for a rest and an energy bar. According to my guide book it was once the front part of a larger church, but it’s perfect just the way it is.

As we walked Johnny’s swearing became more and more inventive, and on the lane into Caistor he reached the limit of his endurance.

In the town we headed to the pub first and sank some beer. Then we found we’d missed the fish and chip shop while we were in the pub, and that there were no buses to Tealby.  We bought sausage rolls from the Coop and footcare products from Boots, then sat on a bench in the market square to wait for a taxi. It was strangely quiet.

Irene, the proprietor of our B&B offered warm salt water for sore feet and a lift to the pub in the village. Johnny is limping. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

9 miles.

Hessle to Barnetby le Wold

I don’t like bridges. I don’t like small bridges and I don’t like big bridges, but at least you get over small bridges more quickly. If I’m in a car I often close my eyes (luckily I don’t drive). If I walk, I go as fast as possible without looking left or right.

So there’s this huge river called the Humber, and last time we went walking we finished on the north side, at Hessle. This section we’re starting now officially begins on the south bank at Barton on Humber. So there was no reason, really, to go over The Bridge. There are trains to both sides, I could just start at Barton this time.

Except I couldn’t. I’m walking in the footsteps of Etheldreda, and the Humber will have been a much bigger obstacle for her. She probably crossed in a boat – maybe to the ancient Roman crossing point at Winteringham. I couldn’t ignore it. It’s a huge river. It’s a big deal. And I don’t like to give in to my fears.

So we got the train from Hebden Bridge to Hessle and began by walking across the Humber Bridge. I was nervous before we left home and I was even more nervous when we walked onto it.. This is a huge mother of a bridge. It used to be the longest suspension bridge in the world, and although a number of bridges, mostly in China, have now overtaken it, it’s still in the world’s top ten. You walk and you walk and you feel like you aren’t getting anywhere. I kind of wanted someone to reassure me with facts and figures – how safe it was, how rigorously it is maintained, how there’s a record of no one coming to harm, particularly pedestrians. Johnny pointed out the little holes every few yards. If you looked through them you could see the water below. I’d been trying to ignore them.

After a while I thought it was OK. I was walking, it was beautiful up there on the bridge, it seemed secure, I was halfway over. Then a juggernaut drove past and I felt the metal ground shake beneath my feet.

Eventually we reached the other side and the beginning of the Viking Way. I’d factored in a mile for the bridge. Actually, from the train station to the beginning of the path was  2.5 miles. My guide book said it was another twelve from here.

We walked past a nature reserve. Lots of my favourite plants were growing there – weld, mullein, mignonette, mugwort. 

It was a lovely start to the walk, and as the path curved round with a bend in the river we saw swans.

The Humber Bridge always in the distance.

After a couple of miles the path headed inland, along lanes between fields. We nearly lost Johnny by a hedge peppered with elms. English elms, smooth leaved elms, and he even wondered if there might be plot elms!

We waited for him in the shade.

Soon we caught our last glimpse of the The Bridge.

The path became less botanically interesting. We walked along the edges of fields full of wheat, barley, rape, more wheat, stretching as far as the eyes could see. The golden colour against the sky was a joy to behold, for a minute or two anyway. After mile after mile after mile it kind of lost its appeal.

The guide book had been optimistic. By the time we eventually reached our B&B in Barnetby le Wold, we’d done 17.5 miles, which even allowing for the bridge, still made the guide book 3 miles out. I hope that’s not the way it's going to be all along.

17.5 miles