The Wednesday Walk 1st February 2012

Today’s write-up is courtesy of Wendy. (Nice one Wendy, I shall look forward to the release of your first novel!)

The Plan

A recce walk – one we had not walked previously

The Leader
Trudy B

Who Turned Up
Only three intrepid walkers today: Trudy B, Trudy H and Wendy.  Pat and Sue joined us for lunch.

The Walk
A cold but beautiful day, wall to wall sun and blue sky. We started from a lay-by at Cripplestyle. While changing into our boots we noticed the small church opposite was called 'Naughty Boy Studio' so we guessed it was no longer a church!  We set off down the lane and turned left up a cart track. As we came to the end of the track there was a gate which led us straight up a hill (the kind the Duke of York went up). It was called Kings Barrow. We got to the top where there was a magnificent view and then, like the Duke of York, we came down again. We then were walking across heathland which could have been quite muddy but luckily the mud was frozen. We followed the track to the road and crossed over going up a leafy lane. This took us between two woods called 'Hither Daggons Wood' and 'Further Daggons Wood'. This track was also very muddy, but again mostly frozen mud. We arrived at Hart's Farm where we admired the snowdrops growing in the orchard.  We made our way back to the road and crossed over walking through trees and fields where we came across a fishing Lake hidden in the woods.  We eventually came out near the Churchill Arms, where we met up with Pat and Sue and had lunch. 
After lunch we retraced our tracks and then turned off across Cranborne Common. It was a long slow climb up through Telegraph Plantation.  We managed to find some footpath/bridleway signs and with a bit of guesswork and some help from Trudy H's satnav phone (we discovered later that it thought we were a car and it tried to send us off towards a road) we found our way back to the car.

The Pub
The Churchill Arms at Alderholt. They had a ‘Seniors’ menu with two courses for £6.95.  The food was very good, particularly the chips. Sue's Treacle sponge pud was excellent.  Sadly the pie-eater missed out today being at home nursing a cold

Next week

Meet at David's for a snowdrop walk at Whitsbury/Breamore