Viking Way Walk 8Saturday14th June 2008
0830 on a glorious Saturday morning and here’s me stood outside the school at Marston, one of the prettiest schools I have ever seen, waiting for my fellow walker Graham to arrive from Leeds and the little buggers late. I mean he’s only had to drive 70 odd miles whilst I’ve had an epic journey of at least 12 mile, defiantly due a good rollicking! Just started pouring a cup of tea and he turns up no consideration at all. So one car left here and we’re off in the other along some of Lincolnshire's finest back roads, through Stragglethorpe, across the A17 already busy with Norfolk bound holiday makers then the Quaker stronghold of Brant Broughton past Somerton Castle (which our guidebook tells us is worth making a 2 mile diversion from the Viking Way to see. Never mind that it’s just a group of earth mounds on private land [trespasses will be shot] with a barbed wire fence all round) and into the walkers car par at Boothby Graffoe our start for today. From here skirting Navenby to Wellingore is a couple of miles along the Cliff edge, which at 150ft high gives brilliant views over the Trent Valley to the west. Although narrow and squeezed between a hedge and waist high grass it’s obviously a popular path between the villages as we pass a succession of dog walkers along the way. Most of them keep their heads down apart from the odd furtive glance perhaps a muttered good morning in response to our greetings and then scurry away quickly. Perhaps we look a bit threatening can’t be me must be Graham. Some kind soul has run a lawn mower along the whole length of the path provoking visions of an electric Flymo with a 2-mile cable. After Wellingore – got nothing much to say about the villages we pass through cos villages/towns mean people and neither of us are into people so it’s heads down and best foot forward. After Wellingore the Way follows tarmac, first East away from the Cliff then South along the Roman road of Ermine Street or High Dyke as it’s called in this area. However, just for us there was diagonal path across wheat fields and Wellingore airfield where we stopped for a while to look at the aircraft dispersal’s/defences and let a suspicious farmer look at us before joining the road just before the tarmac ended. Ermine Street, dead straight for the next 5.5 miles is first a 20/30 yard wide dirt track, a legacy of the enclosure acts when it was an important drove road but now used by off road 4x4’s. Then after crossing the A17 at Byards Leap (family café and Bubble Car Museum well worth visiting) it becomes the B6403 for Ancaster. It’s still wide but now has a narrow strip of tarmac up the middle though you hardly notice the cars because the verges must be 30ft wide and we were walking in what would have been the ditch with bushes either side of us. It’s along here that there are loads of dry limestone walls very reminiscent of the Dales plenty of wildlife as well as the verges are protected nature reserves. Very soon we turn west back towards the Cliff which we are going to descend for the final time into the village of Carlton Scroop. Before we get this far I manage to persuade Graham to stop on the pretext that my boots need attention but in reality for a rest and a bite to eat. Eating dinner by potato fields and studying the irrigation system. The thing must have cost an absolute fortune it ran for at least a mile and the bit we were at was made in Israel mind you given their climate they must know a thing or two about irrigation. Down the Cliff next to a Telecom repeater station and join the A607 for a short while where we met Brian painting his fence. Almost a Forth Bridge job, he had done about 300 yds and still had a couple of hundred to go but was quite happy said it got him out of the house and away from the wife something we could both relate to. Carlton Scroop came and went and the main road gave way to back lanes and field paths past Belle Vue Farm, which brought back childhood memories of the Zoo and Speedway Track in Manchester where I grew up. Once past the farm we emerged onto another minor road close by a signpost for the national byway which to quote the website: “The National Byway is a 4,500-mile (7,240 km.) sign-posted cycling route round England and parts of Scotland and Wales. The project was developed out of the desire to make a contribution towards a lasting change in the quality of U.K. life through the integration of the social, environmental, health, economic and educational benefits to be derived by the community from bicycling.” Big ideas eh! Or just Bull**** The road gave us some fantastic views to the south over rolling wooded countryside and for once it was almost a pleasure to dodge the few cars that appeared. Leaving the Byway at Frinkley Lane to join the river Witham now much reduced in size from when we last saw it on the other side of Lincoln, mind you we have walked about 30 miles whilst the river has meandered about 50. What marvelous countryside this was everything green and fresh and warm bright sunshine. Could have stayed here all day. Only a couple of mile to go now under the railway line, past the sewerage works with acres of settling ponds and into the outskirts of Marston to meet Tony and John. They were from down south and walking the Viking Way in one go but the opposite direction to us. In the 110 miles we’ve done since the Humber Bridge they are the first two proper walkers we have seen. This was their third day with another nine to go, about an hour ago they had got caught in a cloudburst just about the time we were sunning ourselves by the Witham and had to retire to the pub to dry out I felt really sorry for them especially so as we reached our car before the pub.
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