The Viking Way Part IA 147-Mile Walk South From Barton-Upon-Humber to OakhamA Walk is a difficult subject to write about. It’s either a step by step guide of the route with points of interest, or it’s an account of the people you walked with and the events of the day.The former is usually pretty dull reading unless your lost in the area and the latter is usually a case of ‘you had to be there’, again a pretty dull picture. Is a blend of the two any better or is it twice as bad? So, how to make the story about a walk more interesting?Location, location, location. Pretty flat, big river on the right, nice bridge though. In this case the location isn’t quite the back of beyond where few dare to tread although in all probability few do. So the location won’t exactly grab the reader’s interest.Adventurous. Well my definition of an adventure is to attempt something which even if you achieve the very best you can you may still have to turn back or possibly not return. Well unfortunately this walk doesn’t quite meet this criteria, or come anywhere close. It was probably more adventurous for my son because he’s a bit shorter than me so has to push himself further to keep up. So, no reader interest there.Although walking with a child can put a different perspective on the walk but will it make it interesting (maybe he should write it)? My son basically marches on his stomach so it was a case of walking in half hours with five minutes snack time. It made the pace leisurely and as the weather was good and we had enough hours of daylight left in the autumn sky we strolled along the bridge to the first tower and basked in the now low sun and finished off the chocolate. Oh dear I’ve gone and started a story now, at the end. In this case there were no special circumstances, floods, ten foot snow drifts, sixty mile an hour winds or monsters hiding round corners to make this an adventure.Really I think the majority of us walk for our own reasons and most of these remain unshared and unwritten about. I walk because I like the company of the people I’m with. Roger also brought along very nice pork pies which he was more than ready to share. In this instance it also gave me time to spend with my son in a different environment to the usual one at home. Walking also gives me the time to let my mind wander and get lost in all sorts of places or resolve some problem or other. Occasionally the surroundings will give a wow factor or photographic opportunity. I suppose some people walk to find the places to take photographs of. Most of mine are of people with a bit of landscape in the background, sometimes in focus. A ‘happy snapper’ I believe is the correct terminology. So, take up photography, or even change to writing fiction now that might make it more interesting for the reader.All this may lead you to believe the day in question was boring, dull and dreary.In fact it was a great day out. The weather was warm with a low autumnal sun glinting on the river Humber. Yachts raced up and down the waterway along with the odd container ship, which wasn’t allowed in the race because it had an engine. Numerous birds soared and wheeled around us spreading themselves out amongst a number of wetland lakes around the area. We were full of good cheer, had grub in our packs and drinks aplenty. My companions were my son Callum and Roger Turton (Both Roger and I are retired members of MADS ‘Malham Area Diggers’). The walk had been Roger’s idea though as neither of us had the time to do the walk in one go we realised we would have to do it as a series of one day linear walks. However this first stage was to be an 8 mile circular walk covering the first 4 miles of the Viking Way and finding a suitable spot to park for the start of the next walk so reducing what is otherwise a 15 mile or so first section. Each section been dictated by the convenience of parking spots.So a most agreeable day was spent strolling for 4 miles along or close by the river Humber with our turn around point being a duck pond in the village of South Ferriby resplendent with a rather mouldy looking plastic heron and a couple of parking spots nearby. On the way back we detoured inland through the aforementioned wetland lakes then onto the bridge. Finally we finished off with an ice-cream in the ‘Waterside Park’ café. Ice creams are obligatory on all our walks depending on availability, with or without children, but they make it seem more sensible.So we know where the next section starts and that it will finish in Barnetby le Wold but what happens in between will only be revealed some time in December when we get round to doing it.
