A Change of Plan

This morning we decided to defer our departure from Hungerford by 24 hours.  Jan wanted to have another look at the local shops and I made the decision to go for a long walk around the local area.  Apparently it was also ‘baking day’ and we now have a freshly baked loaf of bread and two cakes. 

After looking at the area on the OS map I planned a route to the south of Hungerford and uploaded it to the gps.  The red traces are the planned sections and the blue are the actual traces recorded by the gps.  I only recorded the sections of footpath that are not already recorded on the Open Street Map (OSM).

Hungerford has a rather large and well utilised common to the SE.  Even though it was a Monday there were plenty of walkers out exercising their canine companions.

Hungerford Common

The walk was a mixture of scrub, open farmland and forest.

This time I walked the entire circuit with our old digital Pentax camera in my hand.  After seeing numerous deer during previous walks, but never having time to get the camera out of my backpack, I was finally successful.

One section took me down a small lane and through these brick and stone gate posts capped with a stone acorn.

One had the impression there might be a grand home somewhere further down the lane and this proved to be correct.

There were actually two in the area.

The final short section of footpath took me back to the towpath across Marsh Common and on to Marsh Lock which (strangely?) had a swing-bridge over the middle of it!

The towpath took me back to Waiouru past Hungerford Church.

On board Waiouru I made myself lunch by using Jan’s freshly baked bread to cut myself a tomato sandwich <yum>.  Jan explained she had been doing some research and established the building I’d photographed beside the canal yesterday was a former granary and the area had previously been a wharf.  She also informed me it is ‘Hocktide’ in Hungerford tomorrow (the only place in the UK where it is still celebrated) and at 8.00am the ‘Tutti-Men’ will be walking around the town tying up the ladies for a kiss.  So the plan is to now depart after Jan gets her kiss from the Tutti-men.