I decided in 2007 that I would organise this run
again for the Tuesday pensioners group, in the event there were only
two of us. I put the bikes in my estate car and drove to Santon Downham
Forestry Office where we parked and then cycled north to the Harling
Drove (Norfolk Route 30). Turning East we started on the Drove Road
which runs in an easterly direction for about eight miles. George was
riding his Mercian with 28mm tyres and drop-bars, totally unsuitable
for loose sand and after a short distance he decided to turn back and
go to the lunch stop (The Nags Head, East Harling) by road. I gave him
instructions for the road route and he arrived five minutes before me.
I
continued on to the Mundford Road junction, I was riding my Abbey Mixte
with downhill bars and 32mm Schwalbe Marathon tyres. The Shimano
Megarange Superlow gears were a great asset. |
Crossing the
Mundford Road
|
|
The end of
the difficult part
|
Start of 3
miles of hard surfaced road
I started on this stretch which was very pleasant
with little traffic.
|
|
Looking back at Croxton New
Buildings
|
Start
of the off road section to Langmere
(Croxton/E. Wretham road)
This doesn't look promising, but
it gets better.
|
|
Looking
back along the drove at Langmere
|
Your
first view of Langmere
When flocks of sheep were driven along the
drove to East Harling market, this would have been one of the few
watering places.
|
Wildfowl on Langmere |
Wildfowl on Langmere
|
The way
forward to the Kilverstone/E. Wretham road |
Ringmere,
to the south of the route
(Kilverstone/E.
Wretham road)
There is a phenomenon with this lake, it can
be full in a
dry summer and empty in a wet summer. It is believed that it has a
fault to the substrata. |
Looking
back along the Drove
It is a good hard stoney road at this
point. It crosses the line of the old Thetford to Swaffham Railway here.
|
This
is the road to the former Roudham Junction,
now a dead end |
The way forward to
Peddars Way |
Going on to Peddars
Way and Shadwell Crossing (formerly known as Roudham Crossing), I was
surprised to see how overgrown it had become. Whilst the road through
Roudham Forest is a good hard gravel road, Peddars Way would hardly
qualify as a cart track (it would be difficult to get a horse and cart
through it). |
Peddars Way
(Cyclist's are OK) |
Peddars Way |
I carried on to
Bridgham and East Harling, where George had arrived five minutes before
me. We had lunch at The Nags Head and then both did the return journey
to Santon Downham along the drove with the exception of the loose sandy
bit where we did a detour around it (we turned right on the Mundford
road then first left to Santon Downham).
We had a very pleasant day, thanks to the Forestry Commission, and a
very good lunch at The Nags Head.
The only snag was that when on the way home on the A14 we ran into a
tailback of traffic at Newmarket, which moved very slowly (I think
George would have got home |
quicker by cycling
the A14 and walking back up the Nine Mile Hill slip road and
into Cambridge that way). We carried on to the A11/A14 split and found
the A14 was closed. All traffic had to use the A11 so we went to the
Great Wilbraham junction and turned off. We found that the road into
Cambridge was also jammed with traffic. We heard on the radio that
there had been an explosion at the Girton interchange, A lorry carrying
industrial gases had turned over, caught fire and cyclinders started
exploding. I took George to the Park & Ride so he could cycle
home on the Jubilee cycleway, whilst I went back to Quy and spent a
couple of hours at my cousins house waiting for the situation to cool
down. I eventually got home after 8.0pm (should have been home by 5.0pm) |
