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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Wednesday 11 April 2018

Wednesday Walk Wakes Colne to Bures to Sudbury - a double header along the Colne Valley and into Gainsborough country

Book 1 Walk 46 - Wakes Colne to Bures 
17.7 km (11 miles), Toughness 5 out of 10

Book 1 Walk 8 - Bures to Sudbury [taking short cut omitting Bulmer Tye] 
13.7 km (8.5 miles), Toughness 4 out of 10

You have a choice of 3 walks today:

1. Standard walk: of 11 miles, a lovely walk through the Colne Valley, with an excellent lunch pub stop.
2. Long walk: of 19.5 miles, a grand double header which combines both Book 1 walks. Toughness 7 out of 10
3. Late Afternoon walk (for workers sneaking off early) of 8.5 miles:.join the long walkers on a lovely walk through Gainsborough country

Travel

Standard and Long Walkers

London Liverpool Street: 10-02 hrs    Ipswich service
Arrive Marks Tey: 10-57 hrs    Change trains
Leave Marks Tey: 11-01 hrs     Sudbury service
Arrive Chappel and Wakes Colne: 11-07 hrs

Afternoon Walkers

London Liverpool Street: 15-02 hrs   Ipswich service
Arrive Marks Tey: 15-57 hrs   Change trains
Leave Marks Tey:  16-01 hrs   Sudbury service
Arrive Bures:   16-13 hrs

Please wait on the platform at Bures for the Long Walkers to meet up with you. (Their e.t.a is 16-15 hrs).  If they do not arrive by 16-20 hrs, please head off on your afternoon walk: they will try to catch up with you.

Return

Bures to Liverpool Street via Marks Tey: 16-39, 17-39, 18-44 hrs
Sudbury to Liverpool Street via Marks Tey: 18-37, 19-38, 20-32 and 21-26 hrs

Rail ticket

Either [for standard walkers] a day return to Bures (pronounced "Bewers") or [for long walkers and afternoon walkers]  a day return to Sudbury, Suffolk

As that is a long pre-amble I will leave it to you to read the notes on the two walks. Both are favourites of mine, and combined make for a rewarding long walk, with plenty of variety.

Your lunch stop (Standard and Long Walkers) is the usually excellent Five Bells in Colne Engaine. 'Phoning ahead recommended  01787-224166. Standard Walkers can take tea in Bures at the Eight Bells.
Afternoon and Long Walkers should try to stop for tea at the delightful Mill Hotel whose cream teas are recommended.
T=1.46 
Directions here for the Bures-Sudbury walk
Directions here for main Wakes Colne to Bures walk L=1.46

6 comments:

Walker said...

Bures is now a request stop

cinzia said...

Hi all, I am thrilled to join in on Wednesday. see you soon

Walker said...

Just to expand on my earlier comment, Bures is now a request stop. So getting on there you have to

Face the driver, raise your hand
You will find he will understand **.

("BIlly Brown of London Town", WW2)

Presumably to get off there you have to inform the train guard. If anyone is interested, there is more here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGSZByaNVg

(** to which the standard graffiti response was

Yes he will understand, the cuss
But will he stop the bloody bus?)

Anonymous said...

Marvelous lunch pub
https://www.fivebells.net/food/
by the looks of it
An extract from the menu
Vegan? We have a range of dishes we are able to offer depending on what we have in our kitchen.
It is definitely gaining momentum

Marcus said...

An inauspicious start for the 6 of us who arrived at Marks Tey railway station, expecting to connect with the Sudbury service to take us to today's walk start. Alas - an incident on the track, near Bures, resulted in the cancellation of our Sudbury train. The station staff were most apologetic and helpful in organising replacement taxis for travellers (most going to Sudbury) but as the cabs had to come from Colchester, we had a long wait for their arrival. No matter, ours eventually turned up, but our driver took such a bizarre route towards Chappel (in fairness to him, some local roads were closed) that we decided to bail out at Earls Colne,and start our walk from there, thus cutting out the opening six kms of the walk.
The weather was w=overcast-mild-and-dry-all-day but with no sign of the sun. In a temperature very pleasant for our walk we headed for our lunch pub at Colne Engaine, through muddy fields and more slippery, slubberdub mud which made progress all day very hard going - and detracted a bit from ones enjoyment of the walk.
At the Five Bells pub we met up with a new SWC walker who had set out an hour earlier by herself from London and had managed the full morning's walk without mishap or becoming lost. So our muster for the day was n=7.
After an excellent lunch for four of us (the Five Bells seldom disappoints) and drinks for the others, we set out into more muddy fields but with some lovely displays of wild daffodils, primroses and some early wild garlic. Add in the young lambs in the fields, we had lots to keep us cheerful as we made it slowly through the slubberdub.
Fortunately no afternoon walkers alighted from the train at Bures - as our enthusiasm to continue with the walk to Sudbury was by now diminished. Refreshments for some in Bures, then the seven of us enjoyed a prompt, uneventful and excellent train journey back to London: thank you Anglia.
Six of us only managed just over 10 kms today, but it seemed further than this and for once the distance was quite sufficient and satisfying for a walk outing, given the conditions - although somewhat different from the 31 km extravaganza some of us were expecting.
The company today was, as usual, very friendly with excellent banter along the route: our first timer was not totally put off, and might even give SWC walks another go.

Marion said...

I’ve just read Marcus’s walk report with a huge sigh of relief that I bailed out for a mud free amble down the river Lea with various parks en route and the Olympic village new housing and restaurants (mostly gone bankrupt) My panini in the Velodrome could not have competed with your gastronomic experiences.
I’m glad we all avoided a further deluge of rain in an easterly wind but these train cancellations are really infuriating and spoiling the enjoyment of walking groups trying to rendezvous. It would have taken me 5 trains yesterday 3 just to get to Liverpool st.
I met 36 walkers at Tottenham hale and conversed with the somewhat younger profile of teachers still on their Easter break who had not wanted to venture into the muddy countryside. Then a worthwhile conversation with the Chairman of South Bank ramblers with whom I was able to share my experiences as a member of Inner London Area committee of ramblers groups versus RA politics on affiliated groups. A surprising number of walking groups are in desperate need of new walks leaders so I am constantly recommending the SWC walk directions to new leaders. Very few ever use GPS liking compass bearings best so our written format really hits the spot.