| Date: Location: Walk Leader: Participants: Distance: Parking: Lunch: | 24th August 2016 Longham Peter Peter, Ray and Rob part time 7.2 miles Bridge Hotel Bridge Hotel ★★★★☆ |
The first part of this walk was a circuit of the Lakes at Longham which is a little under 3 miles. It was a lovely bright day and Rob joined Peter and Ray for this section.
We stopped for a short while after starting to chat with a man who had a radio controlled flying boat that was also doing circuits of the lake. We then had a second stop to chat to a group from Poole Park Model Yacht Club who were racing scale Lasers on the same lake.
As you can see, from the annotation on the map below, the lower lake is not shown on older versions of the OS map, such as the one I used for this screen shot, so I have added it in.
After leaving Rob back at the hotel Peter and Ray head off along the Ferndown Stour and Forest Trail which follows the banks of the Stour towards Dudsbury. We managed to find a nice shady spot in the Belle Vue Plantation and this was very welcome as the day had become pretty hot by then.
We departed from the main trail crossing over via Coneygar Farm and then rejoining it for a short while before we turned south on the road to Hampreston. It's hard to believe but on this section of the trail we came across another wasp nest, a large hole right in the middle of the track. We had a bit of a job finding where the footpath was supposed to be here as the maize had been allowed to grow right up to the cemetery wall and there was a notable absence of signs as far as we could see. The route was quite straightforward after this but it was getting hotter by the minute. By the time we got back to the car we were more than a little damp!
A really pleasant walk, apart from the heat, in an area that is really developing as a lovely nature place. It was good to see Rob walking again too.
Hopefully Clive will be back with an improved back next week and we will have a full team for the first time for a long time.
We stopped for a short while after starting to chat with a man who had a radio controlled flying boat that was also doing circuits of the lake. We then had a second stop to chat to a group from Poole Park Model Yacht Club who were racing scale Lasers on the same lake.
As you can see, from the annotation on the map below, the lower lake is not shown on older versions of the OS map, such as the one I used for this screen shot, so I have added it in.
After leaving Rob back at the hotel Peter and Ray head off along the Ferndown Stour and Forest Trail which follows the banks of the Stour towards Dudsbury. We managed to find a nice shady spot in the Belle Vue Plantation and this was very welcome as the day had become pretty hot by then.
We departed from the main trail crossing over via Coneygar Farm and then rejoining it for a short while before we turned south on the road to Hampreston. It's hard to believe but on this section of the trail we came across another wasp nest, a large hole right in the middle of the track. We had a bit of a job finding where the footpath was supposed to be here as the maize had been allowed to grow right up to the cemetery wall and there was a notable absence of signs as far as we could see. The route was quite straightforward after this but it was getting hotter by the minute. By the time we got back to the car we were more than a little damp!
A really pleasant walk, apart from the heat, in an area that is really developing as a lovely nature place. It was good to see Rob walking again too.
Hopefully Clive will be back with an improved back next week and we will have a full team for the first time for a long time.
 The Stour Looking Lovely |  Ray, Peter, Rob Looking Lovely |  Another "Bleep" Wasp Nest |
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