The A team were back in action today!  Rita ably led the Cambridge Rambling Club on its first walk of 2010. A 14mile circular walk starting from Orwell then across the fields to Whaddon, Dyers Green and lunch at Wimpole Hall. In the afternoon we scaled the heights  across to Eversden and on down the old Clunch Pit back into Orwell.

Unfortunately the GPS ran out of battery just before lunch so the overall length should be longer than the 13.4miles indicated! (Sally‘s GPS said 14.3 miles)

A gorgeous cold and crisp sunny day.

Here are the pictures and trail:-

Orwell to Wimpole circular walk

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Todays little walk was with the B team of The Cambridge Rambling Club, ably led by John, we set of from Great Shelford and ventured across to Haslingfield. We did quite a bit of road walking which with the mud and ice was probably just as well. Our lunchtime drink was at the Little Rose in Haslingfiled (no food served at lunch time). Followed by a tea and mince pies at John’s house in Shelford. Sally and I as A group walkers decided to add an extra 4 miles onto the day by walking back to Cambridge – exploring the not completed guided busway and very nearly getting stuck in a car park!

On the way I had an interesting talk with Paul who I discovered was another map geek plus we shared mutual friends from my Cavendish days.

Here is the walk and today’s pictures:-

Shelford – Haslingfileld walk

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Our friend Ellee has just done a great blog post on The Wonders of Walking.

Tis a pity she wasn’t with us today as Sally and I had a beautiful walk with the Cambridge Rambling Club. The leaders for today should have been Margaret & Larry. However, due to the icy road conditions and because they live in the remote regions of Cambridgeshire where gritter lorries never appear (although it has to be said Cambridge city centre pavements have yet to be gritted!) they couldn’t make the walk.

So Ron & Margaret stepped into the breech and gave 9 of us as a totally stunning walk around Cambridge starting from Cherry Hinton Hall taking in the chalk pits and the old lime kiln and thence through the Addenbrookes industrial complex onto Nine Wells and the start of Hobson’s conduit then along the Cam into the city and a welcome break of hot mince pies and coffee at Henry’s. Then onward across Jesus Green, Midsummer common, Coldhams common and back to Cherry Hinton Hall.

The weather was very cold (well -4ish) with crystal clear skies and beautiful mellow winter sun bringing out the best in the college brick & stonework.

A beautiful satisfying walk in the winter sun and a fitting tribute for a great 2009 walking year. So Ellee’s post is very apt!

Here is the walk and pictures (please excuse the thumbprints on some of the images ) on Everytrail:-

Cambridge in the snow

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Today’s weather was as beautiful as it was foul on our last ramble with the Cambridge Rambling Club. Carolin ably led us on a beautiful 14mile walk around the undulating countryside of Barley. Still some fruit on the trees although well past its sell by date, but showing just how rich we are that we can afford to leave whole apple trees unpicked!  plus we saw the delightful spindle tree fruits, the name came from when the tree was used for making the spindles used when spinning wool.

A wonderful day in very pleasant company and fine weather. Many thanks to Sally of Swedish massage fame for the fine vegetable chilli which we had with Anthony & Kay last night and for our lunch today!

Here is the walk on Everytrail:-

Barley walk with Cambridge Rambling Club

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The new boots worked well in the long wet grass at the start of the day.

Now to decide about selling and buying houses in Cambridge……

Yesterdays walk with the Cambridge Rambling Club was a good test for our foul weather gear, mine failed abysmally

We 11 started from St Mary’s Church car park at Rougham, in very wet and windy conditions, so it was heads down for the first 9 miles to Bradfield St Clare and a spot of lunch in the shelter of the church porch, followed by a drink at the Fox & Hounds in Bradfield St. George. The afternoon cleared up a little so we started to dry out.

From Rougham Walk

Very disappointing for me in that the left boot of my brand new Scarpa ZG65 XCR boots sprang a leak. So it’s back to Open Air with them today! My RAB Bergen jacket (QWA-05-RDB) was as useless as ever with little streams inside the arms and the pockets filling with water. It’s time has now come – I will return it to RAB. A quick survey of the other 10 people in our party  showed the Karrimor & Berghaus as highly effective, the Paramo did OK too but they are really heavy to lug around on extended walks.

Here is the walk and photographs:-

Rougham circular walk

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Update 021109 – Open Air agree boots are faulty , should have new pair by Friday

Today’s Cambridge Rambling Clubs “A” team walk should have been led by Larry unfortunately he was indisposed so Jill took over at the last minute, hence the couple of blips on the GPS trail!

The walk was designed as a figure of eight with Ickworth Hall in the centre, acting as a rendezvous point for the start and lunch. In the morning we were blessed with sunshine and a cold wind the afternoon turned into a battle across a ploughed field in a squall!

Here is the walk and trail with (even though I say so myself) a fine shot of Ickworth Hall!

Ickworth figure of 8 walk

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After my hectic night with Sally (see her posts here and here) plus stopping to take a snapshot of  one of the three police cars wrecked on Regent Street we didn’t make it back home till 1am ish.

Mud, Mud glorious mud

Then today was up and away to be at Cambridge Rambling Clubs ‘A’ walk led by Carolyn with a 9am start from Hardwick across the total overkill of the blue footbridge over the A428  followed by many many muddy fields to Elsworth for a drink at the George & Dragon run by the aptly named Mr & Mrs Beer.

Here is the walk with some great shots of muddy boots:-

Cambridge Ramblers – Elsworth Walk

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