DAY 1 – THE JURASSIC WAY
Stamford to Fineshade Abbey
The one with the wrong train, the frigging cat and the perfect campsite.
Distance: 14.97 miles, 35k steps.
Weather: overcast with a splattering of rain. 21 degrees.
Summary:-
😷 MK station is very well organised for COVID. Everyone was wearing masks, although there were not many people. Rules were we had to sit on the window seats and be two seats apart.
🚞 oh no, I’m on the wrong train! How did that happen? Not a good start!
🚆 My super speedy train went flying by Long Buckby and stopped at Rugby! I arrived in Nuneaton at 8.54am. Debby & Rebecca are due here at 9.38am so I’ve got a while to wait. Off to Asda / McDonalds I go in search of coffee ☕️ (didn’t find any!)
📷 11am – arrive in Stamford. We can’t find the actual starting point so we made up our own! A nice bloke took our photo outside the oldest pub in Stamford. We are now joined by Rose (Rebecca’s mum).
And we are off!
12pm – Stamford is gorgeous and I make a mental note to return here one day. The first part of the wall took us through barley fields and wild nature reserves.
12.20 – 😂 If you could hear all four of us making oh… ah… noises as we meandered through Eastern on the hill you would have laughed, but it was so quaint. This village has gorgeous thatched cottages, sunken roofs on top of honey-coloured stone cottages. Well kept gardens and window boxes galore. It was a delight!
1pm – We crossed the border from Lincs to Rutland after a very pretty stone bridge (where we took photos). The yellow of the wheat fields with a sprinkling of poppies was beautiful.
🐑 Omg! We saw a sheep who had blood all down its legs and something weird hanging from its undercarriage. It was rather gross so we moved on quickly.
🍺 2.45pm – We reached the village of Duddington. Another very affluent village. We spotted The Royal Oak pub which was open (1st day today), so we grabbed the opportunity and stopped for some cheeky chunky chips and a Heineken Zero!
🌲 The next section was owned by the forestry commission. We were meant to finish our walk at Kings Cliffe, but it was only 3.30pm so we decided to make a dent in tomorrow’s walk instead. We continued for another few miles until we reached a caravan site and thought we would try our luck.
🏕 No, they don’t let tents stay at the caravan site, so we kept walking. We found an amazing wild camping site which is right next to a lake on the grounds of an Abbey (on a public footpath). It has swans 🦢 with their babies nesting on the island in the middle. Rebecca has already had a paddle. The owners of the land came to feed the nearby chickens 🐓 and we thought they’d ask us to move on. Instead, they gave us permission to stay, which was great!
PS – 🐈 The resident cat is a pain in the bum.
That’s all folks!
Night night.