The Viking Way Part II144 Miles from South Ferriby to OakhamA train rumbled through the station as two figures emerged from the December gloom. Remote key fobs fired their invisible codes to their cars parked anonymously amongst the rest. Simultaneously boot lids sprang open and bags passed from car to car, a quick glance round and the lids slammed shut. Moments later a car sped away carrying the two men to their destiny.Well the day started a bit like that. It was 8:40 on December the 15th to be exact, it was gloomy and we were in a railway station at Barnetby-Le-Wold. This was to be the end of our 11 mile walk from South Ferriby where our last walk had reached. Although in the end it turned out to be a bit more than that.This was our second section of the Viking Way which we were tackling as one day linear walks hence the need for two cars. Park one at the end, drive to the start and park, walk to the end and drive back to the start. I’m sure I mentioned that in the first article so I won’t mention it again. In the same article I also mentioned trying some fiction to make it more interesting. After my attempt in the first paragraph, I won’t be doing that again either.Anyway the day got off to a poor start at 8:43 when Roger discovered that he had left his pork pies and sausages in the fridge at home. This was rather disappointing as I’d been looking forward to sharing them. After driving the twenty minutes or so to the start we were able to begin. The walk was mainly across rolling agricultural land, along the odd road and through the occasional village. Our progress was measured by the number of ‘wolds’ we passed through, four in total today, Horkstow,Saxby, Elsham and of course Barnetby-Le. The weather was overcast all day and chilly enough for us to keep our fleeces and hats on for most of it. Underfoot an overnight frost meant the ground was hard but as the day wore on it slowly thawed and subjected us to a muddy final mile or so.On our travels we taxed our mental agility by trying to give definitions for words that appeared on the map or from things that cropped up in our path. The first instance was a mushroom /toadstool? Which prompted the question, what do you call a person who studies fungus (not a fungusologist)? This took us about twenty minutes after passing the example of fungi to remember it. The answer appears at the end of the article as do the answers to these, we got them right so see if you can, ‘covert’, appearing as a wooded area on the map. One in particular was Turton’s Covert, aptly named as this is Roger’s surname and the word ‘wold’ for obvious reasonsNow to get to that ‘bit more’ I mentioned earlier. Approaching Barnetby at about 1:30 we decided because it was still early that we would push on to the next village. Bigby is about two miles or so further on so would increase the walk to about fifteen miles, time to push ourselves and be slightly adventurous. As we walked through Barnetby we wondered what the local’s make of people like Roger and I, with rucksack’s, fleeces, colourful hats and muddy boots. Words like eccentric, crackers or barmy spring to mind. Little do many of them probably realise though that a long distance footpath passes directly by their front door.As we left the village we passed some friends of the ‘Plastic Heron in South Ferriby’, ‘Mr and Mrs Plastic Goose on their Gateposts in Barton-Le –Wold’. Anyway we continued on to the Village of Bigby and found a lay-by we could use for the start next time. Bigby also provided the location for a certain pastime I am going to call ‘guess the age of that building’.To be honest we were rubbish and could only get ‘old’, ‘new’, ‘new trying to be old’, or in one case 1932. The date stone on the gable end helped with that one. What we realised was that we needed to swat up on our brick and bricklaying general knowledge before we hit the wolds again.No ice cream van at the station meant that we had to make do with chocolate muffins this time. Discovering that the cars are where you left them, you haven’t lost the keys and the cars start always make the day that bit better.
