Ok, so these were virtual home improvements - but we have had a brilliant day nevertheless. Perfect walking weather and great terrain plus much more interesting than we had imagined for what is essentially a straight, ancient Roman trail. Peddars Way is an historic route first used by the military marching from Colchester to access Boadicea's lands in the East but was later adopted, popularised and named as such by pilgrims travelling to the religious centre at Walsingham in the north of Norfolk.
The start of the official route is nothing more than a finger post, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but fortunately I found this nice looking chap propped up there so thought I'd drag him along for some company ;-)
Rather surprisingly, much of today's route has been through woodland - beech laden with young fruit, mighty oaks, conifer plantations, sadly diseased horse chestnut struggling to turn flowers into conkers and the occasional sycamore - all brilliant for the provision of shade and wonderfully invigorating oxygen. The fields too are abundant at this time of year. Barley and potatoes appear to be the predominant crops painting a gold and green patchwork across the horizon, dotted with poppies and purple clover.
One thing I was really looking forward to discovering more about today was the Norfolk Songlines. Our TrailBlazer book describes these as 'five stone sculptures inspired by an arts project intended to explore the connection between a track and the landscape it travels through'. Sound good? (I'm précis-ing because you'd be bored, and because if you'd like to know more you can visit www.norfolksongline.co.uk) - well I thought they sounded inspirational and charming, but the reality is rather less exciting than it sounds. Still, you learn something new .... as they say.
We also got quite fired up by the prospect of the famous (famous?) Norfolk Pingo Ponds on Thompson Common - an area of grassland covering 346 acres including Thompson Water. The pingo ponds are ancient ice age formations, home to a unique range of wildlife and an excellent breeding ground for dragonflies and damselflies. Unfortunately they're also perfect breeding grounds for mosquitos and other biting nasties so we hopped it with just this photo to share.
[You can read more here if you're interested http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo ]
And on we went. The sun came out, the feet held up well, the lure of a hot shower grew increasingly attractive and now I'm full of beef and mushroom pie, chips and lager shandy having walked 17 miles so, feeling jolly pleased with myself, will be hitting the hay early tonight and will just leave you with a final view of the village we're staying in tonight. Charming, don't you think?
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