Category: LDWA 100

This walk was socially distanced….. And is the fourth walk in preparation for the 2021 LDWA 100. But isn’t an LDWA walk in itself, because these have all been suspended until the troubles are over.

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WALK NUMBER: 4 (Norwich to Eaton)

DISTANCE COVERED: 10 miles

NUMBER OF NATHAN’S FRIENDS WE “ACCIDENTALLY” BUMP INTO: 0

SUFFICIENT BEER CONSUMED: Yes

PUBS VISITED: 0

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Far too hot

ATTACKED BY ANIMALS: No

NUMBER OF SNAKES SEEN: 0 (but warning signs of killer snakes were noted)

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Our fourth walk was never going to be our most interesting, we wanted something shorter as I’ve been getting a bit too obsessed with walking recently, and Nathan exhausted himself with his 15-minute bike ride last week. Or was it 15 miles? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, it’s easy to get muddled up. So, the walk was through the metropolis of Norwich to see the wealthy denizens of Eaton.

In the centre of Norwich, this is the new St. Anne’s Housing development, it’s the first time that I’ve noted we can walk through the centre of the complex. Incidentally, look at how blue the sky is. That means one thing, it’s too bloody hot.

Oh, on a related subject, I don’t like to talk about my bravery, but I had a lot of pollen-related issues. But, I didn’t let that stop me and I could tell Nathan was very impressed with how courageous I was. He didn’t say that, but sometimes you can read between the lines.

I had better also add, whilst mentioning my bravery, that I was getting a slight problem with shin splints last week so I cut my walk distances down on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (thanks to Richard, Rob and Clive for accepting a downgraded distance) but the issue seems to have mostly gone away. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but it’s important to be honest about these walks, and so it would be amiss of me not to mention my courage and rigour.

I walked by Tesco, so I thought I should get some water. Couldn’t find the water, so I got Nathan and myself some beers. Keenly priced, but this one from Dark Arts was a little unexceptional, but perfectly drinkable. This is a small park in Eaton, with streets that are named after golf courses, such as Carnoustie, Wentworth, Sunningdale and Turnberry. There wasn’t though Mousehold Pitch and Putt, which would have made for a great street name.

Then there was a philosophical discussion, which I was proved right on, about using Runkeeper for tracking walks. I view a walk as one entity and just pause Runkeeper when sitting down or having a break. Nathan, for reasons unknown, seems to think that he has to class it is a new walk every time we have a break or stop. So, Nathan completed 26 walks in one day, whilst I just did the one. I didn’t say much about it as I was patently right.

Snakes?!?!?!?! We made a decision to rush through Marston Marsh which is a nature reserve located on a floodplain.

   

Photos of the River Yare as it winds through the marshes. Plenty of fish and tadpole things in the water and there were relatively large numbers of people walking along the riverside.

We accidentally went on a detour to check how this Greggs was getting on. Not open yet of course, but it will be soon enough. It was almost possible to smell the ovens preparing the next batch of chicken bakes, but I feel that my imagination might have been running away with me somewhat.

This is the former Post Office in Lakenham, constructed as a residential property in the early seventeenth century, with numerous later additions.

The derelict Lakenham Cock pub, trading since the mid-eighteenth century it closed in 2015. This is likely a perfectly viable pub in terms of its location and size, but the building has now become damaged and the repairs to make this a working pub would be substantial in cost. The property was being sold for £750,000 as a residential property, which puts it out of the league of anyone wanting to re-open it as a pub.

Lakenham has a village charm, but it really needs something at the centre of its community. And a pub would be marvellous.

I don’t know whether this is the River Tas or the River Yare, they seem to merge a bit here and I’m easily confused at the best of times. And it doesn’t matter, you can pick which name you prefer and use that. That’s some academic rigour there…

And, we accidentally stopped at the Fisher residence for supplies of water. She didn’t let us down with her cooking skills either, with her personal culinary calling card of chicken strips and olives being very welcome.

Then the walk back into the centre of Norwich. Nathan told me not to mention that he was worried how we would get past the road construction, so I won’t say anything.

And that was that, a basic ten-mile walk with nothing of huge excitement, but since it’s part of our training programme for the 100, I’m writing about it anyway. And, unusually, we didn’t see any of Nathan’s legion of friends, but I’m sure they’ll make an amazing appearance in the next episode.

As this is a shorter, and frankly less interesting, walking report, I thought I’d mention something else which is far more important. Although we’re training for the LDWA 100, we’re also doing this for a long walk that four of us are planning for 2022. For those who know me, I’ve been won over by Liam’s two angelic younger children, who frankly are a constant delight to take on day trips. One of them happens to have Duchenne, and this is a troublesome condition that needs funding to find a medical solution, as well as to support families in managing it. There’s more about Duchenne at Duchenne UK for those who want some background.

Our 2022 walk, of which we’ll talk more about during this year and 2021, will aim to raise publicity and funding for Duchenne. So, for the first time, I can excite and delight the three readers of this blog, as not only will this blog feature our efforts at the LDWA 100 in May 2021, it’ll also then be the prelude to the whole 2022 adventure. That will be a contribution that we can make to help end Duchenne.

This walk was socially distanced….. And is the third walk in preparation for the 2021 LDWA 100. But isn’t an LDWA walk in itself, because these have all been suspended until the troubles are over.

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WALK NUMBER: 3 (Norwich to Lingwood)

DISTANCE COVERED: 22 miles

NUMBER OF NATHAN’S FRIENDS WE “ACCIDENTALLY” BUMP INTO: 3

SUFFICIENT BEER CONSUMED: No

PUBS VISITED: 0

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Moderate

ATTACKED BY ANIMALS: No

NUMBER OF SNAKES SEEN: 0

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It’s taken me over a day to be able to upload this due to some faffing about with moving servers, but here we are, the walk we completed on Saturday 23 May 2020. There’s a bit more history to this walk as nothing overly eventful happened, but hopefully enough to remain sufficiently readable. I’m going to struggle to ham this up enough to make it a rock n roll type story, and certainly we didn’t smash anything up on our travails, but I shall dredge what memories out that I can.

The walk started near to Rosary Cemetery, which is notable for being the first non-denominational graveyard in the UK.

It’s a beautiful setting, peaceful and quite expansive, with nearly 20,000 people buried here.

Lion Wood, some of which is ancient woodland. Nathan seemed to think that I got lost in this wood, but I was just looking at some of the trees which weren’t on the path.

What’s left of Pinebanks, formerly used by Norwich Union. I’m not sure that I’ve seen these buildings and grounds for the best part of 25 years, despite it being relatively near to where I live. Not sure what’s going on here, but there should be some redevelopment of the area over the next few years.

This route took us back onto the Yarmouth Road. Nothing exciting happened here.

The Buck in Thorpe St. Andrew, which was closed before the current situation and it’s had a difficult few years. It’s a seventeenth-century building, with numerous extensions and an internal layout that I find quite disjointed.

This is Thorpe St Andrew Parish Church and I’ll have to write more about this elsewhere, otherwise this is becoming a history blog post. In short, this is the tower of the abandoned church which is now the gateway to the new 1866 church structure which stands behind it.

We walked by here in the morning and it was already open, so we knew that we could get chips on the way back and we looked forwards to them throughout the day. More on this bloody debacle later though.

And another derelict building, this time the Griffin pub which had been licensed premises since the middle of the eighteenth century. Formerly also known as Griffin & Pleasure Gardens and the Hungry Fox, it also took the perhaps ridiculous name of Gunga Dins Old Colonial House between 1984 and 1986. It looks like the building will avoid being demolished and since it comes with a chunk of land, there might be a fair amount of redevelopment around here.

The name of a property on Griffin Lane.

I have some friends that might get a sticker such as this just to avoid social contact after the current crisis is over.

Just as we were wondering how we were supposed to join the Southern Bypass, these steps appeared. They were much steeper than they look in the photo and reminded me just how hilly Norfolk is.

Here’s the beautiful and peaceful site of what was once Postwick Grove.

This is marked red and white to stop cars driving down the pedestrian path. This worries me, as it’s likely some bloody idiot has tried it.

The thirteenth-century All Saints church at Postwick, which we would have missed if it wasn’t for the Komoot app sending us down here.

Back into countryside, there were numerous woodland areas on this section of the walk.

Brundall Gardens, our first of three railway stations in the day. More on this station in another post, but this was originally known as Brundall Gardens Halt and was opened in 1924 to serve the increasingly popular local lakes and gardens. The station was inserted onto the existing line, just a short distance from Brundall’s main intermodal hub (well, the local bus).

Into Brundall, it was time for lunch. The staff here have turned their shop into a slalom type affair, which is an Ikea style effort which means you have to walk along every aisle, so the four poor staff stacking shelves had every single customer go by them. Although this amused me when Nathan got trapped in an aisle with four staff on all sides. Anyway, the store’s attempt to force staff to meet every customer within 3 inches aside, the meal deal arrangement proved satisfactory and the staff seemed helpful and friendly.

The lunch-time meal deal. I use this photo partly because anything food-related gets uploaded, but also so I could whinge on about the poor quality of the pork pies. I think Nathan agreed with me when I mentioned the quality, although I suspect he lost interest when I commented on the subject a few more times. I like to have things to get annoyed at.

The Ram Inn. It was shut.

The train at Brundall railway station, which opened in 1844. I hope that Greater Anglia haven’t realised that there’s a lovely station building here, as otherwise they might want to rush over to knock it down to build a car park.

This is about as much sense as I’ve got out of Greater Anglia information team about how much of the Brandon railway station’s frontage they can save. Anyway, I digress and this was a cheap dig. Which is actually probably what Greater Anglia will be doing at Brandon with their bloody car park.

The Huntsman. It was shut.

Mr Motivation excited me by telling that he knew that this pub was open.

It was shut. Although, it was open if we’d have timed it differently, so we were nearly there…. It was at this point that I realised I had made a mistake not to carry a bag, which could have contained a couple of delicious beers.

Nathan knew this area well, as he worked around here and so he was able to tell me quite confidently that there was no path and only a narrow verge on this stretch of road. Anyway, we enjoyed walking along the path that was unbroken and you can see just how treacherously narrow the verges were in places. But, I didn’t say anything as it’s not worth causing any upset.

Whilst walking down this road there was a surprise. Nathan’s friend Ben appeared driving down the road as if by an amazing coincidence. Let’s be realistic, Nathan’s slipped him £5 to drive up and down for an hour for this magic meeting. Let’s remember Nathan “doesn’t know many people”, but frankly, it’d be easier to walk around with the Pope the amount of times we’re stopped on walks. But more on that later.

Strumpshaw church, more on this another time….

After we had got over the ‘shock’ of Nathan’s friend driving by, we were rewarded with this sign showing that it was just 1/4 mile into Lingwood.

One mile later we arrived into Lingwood.

It was shut.

The former Methodist chapel at Lingwood. Again, to avoid this quick walk report turning into a major epic, I’ll write about this another time.

The Lingwood & Strumpshaw reading rooms, more another time….

When we heard the gates come down I explained, using all my knowledge and experience of the railways, that it would definitely be the train going from Great Yarmouth to Norwich. So we looked out for it coming from the Great Yarmouth direction. Anyway, the Norwich to Great Yarmouth train then appeared from the Norwich direction. We swiftly moved on.

I can’t recall ever going to Lingwood, so this is a first for me, the delights and excitement of Lingwood railway station. I really can’t make that sound interesting, although there’s some heritage to the station building (not yet knocked down by Greater Anglia), which was opened in 1882 by the Great Eastern Railway and is now in use as a B&B. More on this in another post though.

Looking down the line towards Lingwood’s sole platform.

After taking in all that Lingwood had to offer, we meandered back a different way to Brundall, taking a more scenic countryside route from Lingwood. Although not until we bumped into the second person that Nathan knew.

This is the thirteenth century St Michael and All Angels in Brundall, although it was once the parish church of Braydeston, but that settlement was abandoned in the medieval period.

After we had left the church, the next friend that Nathan had phoned up to make up an appearance came randomly cycling along with his family. With a conversation that was skilfully scripted to ensure that I could gather how competent Nathan was at his previous job, I pretended that I didn’t think this was another rigged effort.

Hmmmmm. We bravely went into the field full of danger, but we didn’t see the bull.

Back in Brundall, this is a glorious building and it dates back to the seventeenth century, now sadly lost as a pub, but it was the Old Beams and before that the White Horse.

A quick snack from the town’s other Co-op on the way back.

Free books outside a charity shop. I’d add it said that they were free, I hadn’t just assumed that, but I decided against carrying anything back.

As mentioned earlier, we had been looking forwards to chips, and in my case, sausage & chips, since we walked past this fish & chip shop, the Thorpe Fish Bar, earlier on in the day. So, I stroll in after nearly walking in the exit door, and checked if they accepted cards. Which they didn’t. Now, this situation just very slightly annoyed me. I spent 5 weeks in Poland earlier in the year and every single shop, bar, restaurant, hotel and newsagent accepted cards. But here we are in the customer service driven UK and a few outlets here stick rigidly to cash. This wouldn’t matter, but the pair of us walking professionals had one credit card and one debit card between us. But, anyway, that’s their choice and they did tell us that there was a cash machine at Sainsbury’s which was nearby. The service was incidentally excellent and friendly, so I was quite impressed by that.

So, Nathan very kindly offered to run to Sainsbury’s. I had already upped my order to jumbo sausage and chips in anticipation and I noticed Nathan meandering slowly over to the ATM without much running involved if I’m being honest. Given he’s told me that he’s the park run king, I had expected a little more eagerness. Then he messages me about half an hour later saying that the ATM is out of order. Since neither of us carried cash, this proved to be a disaster. I was a little disappointed that this could have potentially been a regular new source of fish and chips for me, but I’ll never know now. I seem destined to always eat at the wonderful Grosvenor fish and chip shop in the city centre. Some things are just destined to be though and this is fine, as the Grosvenor has delectable and succulent delights that I haven’t tired of for over twenty years.

That meant we had to walk the last miles back hungry. Other than Nathan mentioned a couple of times (9 times I think) that his wife would be putting a pizza in the oven that would be waiting cooked when he got back. So, I popped into Aldi and managed to buy some half-price rice pudding. Really living the culinary dream there….

And, that was that, the walk ended after 22 miles (it’s a bit shorter on the Runkeeper file as we did a bit before I turned it on, and some after I turned it off) and there were no injuries. This training programme is definitely flying along. And for anyone wondering, Nathan said his meat feast pizza was delicious. As indeed was my rice pudding.

This walk was socially distanced….. And is the second walk in preparation for the 2021 LDWA 100. But isn’t an LDWA walk in itself, because these have all been suspended until the troubles are over.

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WALK NUMBER: 2 (Norwich to Mulbarton)

DISTANCE COVERED: 19 miles

NUMBER OF NATHAN’S FRIENDS WE “ACCIDENTALLY” BUMP INTO: 1

SUFFICIENT BEER CONSUMED: No

PUBS VISITED: 0

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Sunny (until it got dark, when it wasn’t sunny) and far too hot

ATTACKED BY ANIMALS: No

NUMBER OF SNAKES SEEN: 0

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Since we were most impressed with the professionalism of our first training walk, we thought we’d go for a longer walk today, perhaps ten miles. We got a bit enthusiastic in the end though with the distance, but more on that later. Above is the pond thing near Trowse.

I had hoped to get a photo of the new Greater Anglia trains, but this East Midlands Railway train sufficed.

A field full of nesting birds. The first part of the walk went through Caistor St. Edmunds, so I’ve covered much of this in photos already. It was at this stage getting too hot, which was to be honest, a bloody nuisance. We had water, but no beer, so had the bare minimum that we needed for survival.

Nathan got excited by a rope swing. He scrambled down like a mountain goat. Well, a mountain goat with three legs anyway.

It all looked a bit high up to me, so I had a little sit down and took management control of the situation. Very much like Liam in his job, which seems to involve sitting down and drinking tea. Not that I had any tea, so I concentrated on the sitting down.

Anyway, there he goes. I was hoping he’d do something more dramatic, like go flying, but he was left uninjured. Which I suppose is handy, as otherwise I would have had to walk back on my own with him left in a heap at the bottom as I didn’t have a first aid kit with me.

Clear as mud, this sign is near the entrance to the metropolis that is Mulbarton. One of the most notorious members of Hike Norfolk lives in this sleepy little village and he has a room that only a favoured few have been into. Anyway, I can’t say any more due to potential legal action.

They were shut, which was most annoying as we had seen this sign from a distance and had planned what we could get ourselves. I was already trying to work out how many battered sausages I needed with my chips.

An old bus that excited Nathan, who is a former bus industry professional, as he likes buses. Shame the cafe bit wasn’t open though.

My bargain no-expense spared £1.35 snacks at the Mulbarton Budgens. The shop wasn’t exactly Harrods and some of the pricing seemed a bit dramatic, but I was happy with my value. Nathan was disappointed by the lack of sausage rolls, but he was the one who couldn’t be bothered to walk the extra 50 metres to the Co-op, so frankly, I didn’t have much sympathy. The Budgens did have this strange-looking doner kebab thing that looked hideous, but Nathan refused to buy it to test how awful it was.

Whilst sitting on Mulbarton Common, it was clear at this stage that our timing wasn’t going to get us back by the time that we had intended, but at least the weather was no longer too hot. Incidentally, Nathan thought he saw Clive just finishing his park run from February on the other side of the common, but I don’t think it was.

For those who are wondering whether they want to visit Mulbarton, it doesn’t have a Greggs, a Wetherspoons or a pub in the Good Beer Guide.

The medieval church of St Mary Magdalene at Mulbarton. We decided to head back the way we had come for most of the walk, as we were confident we knew the way. To be fair, we won’t dwell on our promptly going the wrong way twice debacle.

Flowers, we think that they’re bluebells. But we didn’t really have a clue and I don’t think we were that bothered.

Lots of lambs, all looked quite playful and I wasn’t scared of any of these. We’ve been very fortunate so far not to be attacked by animals or to see any snakes. Long may this good fortune continue.

An intriguing sky. Well, it intrigued us, so the bar here is low.

Books in a bus stop at Trowse. A nice idea. One of the elderly and vulnerable members of the walking community (who I won’t name) had placed some gin and tonic in a secure place for us, so we headed through Trowse to enjoy our liquid libation rewards. Which didn’t help with our time-keeping if I’m being honest.

As can be seen from the slightly fading light conditions, we didn’t get back by 7pm. Indeed, it is becoming apparent that our time-keeping is a little shoddy. Above is Pulls Ferry in Norwich, this was originally a canal which took the stone to the site where Norwich Cathedral was being constructed.

A heron or fancy pigeon, probably one of the two.

As a final note, we will be doing an audio recording, or Podcast if you prefer, of each walk and we’ll upload these for the first two walks sometime next week. It’s meant to cover the history of the walk, gossip about people who we know and some riveting information for anyone who might be tempted to start training for the 100. I can’t imagine we’ll inspire anyone at all, but it’ll keep us amused for a few months.

And a very nice little piece in this month’s Outdoors Fitness and Adventure magazine about the 2021 LDWA 100. The photo is the one I sent from Norfolk & Suffolk’s very own Jayne Cook, with the helpful journalist changing the text at the last minute as we finalised where next year’s 100 would actually be held given the impact of Covid-19……

I’m almost quite excited for this 100…..

The LDWA have an excellent collection of route descriptions from past 100 events and they can all be found at https://www.ldwa.org.uk/library/hundreds/hundreds.php. There are also the results and for the recent couple of events, the very useful GPX files. I like this, I’m a GPX person, route descriptions tire me out….

Note for the first event in 1973 that Guinness supplied stout for the entrants, which is a marvellous idea. I’ll add some photos to the later events at some stage over the next few months….. The main image for this page is the photo I took at the Vermuyden checkpoint at the 2018 event. I wasn’t walking that year, I was visiting local pubs and marshalling….

1973 – Downsman
1974 – Peakland
1975 – Downsman
1976 – Cleveland
1977 – Downsman
1978 – Cleveland
1979 – Dartmoor
1980 – Downsman
1981 – Cumbrian
1982 – Pilgrims
1983 – Snowdonia
1984 – Dartmoor
1985 – Yorkshire Dales
1986 – Downsman
1987 – Snowdonia
1988 – White Peak
1989 – Brecon Beacons
1990 – Chiltern
1990 – Marches
1991 – Lancastrian
1992 – Invicta
1993 – Cleveland
1994 – Dartmoor
1995 – Shropshire
1996 – Yorkshire Dales
1997 – Downsman
1998 – White Peak
1999 – Durham Dales
2000 – Millennium
2001 – Cancelled
2002 – Lakeland
2003 – White Rose
2004 – Exmoor
2005 – Chiltern
2006 – Northumberland
2007 – Cant Canolbarth
2008 – Yoredale
2009 – Wessex
2010 – Heart Of Scotland
2011 – Housman
2012 – Games
2013 – Camel-Teign
2014 – Valleys
2015 – Red Rose
2016 – Dorset
2017 – North York Moors
2018 – Cinque Ports
2019 – Hadrian
2020 – Cancelled

Part of my series of motivational messages from those who have done the 100, those who might do the 100 and those who won’t do the 100 but have an opinion on it. This is from Simon Hodgin, who has completed a few 100s. I did suspect that he was cheating, but I’ve checked the evidence and it does appear he walked them.

“”Walking 100 miles in 48 hours, that isn’t possible, is it?” That was the response I received from family & friends when I got ‘lured’ into the world of walking the LDWA 100, only a few years ago.

Far too old to continue playing football with the inevitable damaged knees I had been ‘introduced’ to the world of long distance walking by my partner & her father as a great way to get fit, whilst enjoying some great camaraderie and the benefits of some stunning countryside views.

Initially happy to walk the ‘socials’, and 26 mile routes I was soon lured into walking 50 mile circuits. It was only a matter of time before ‘the 100’ would appear on my horizon.

For many in the LDWA ‘fraternity’ the challenge and ‘enjoyment’ of the 18, 26 and even 50 mile routes provides more than enough challenge and satisfaction, but for some ‘the 100’ provides the annual pilgrimage.

I’m still a relative newcomer to the 100. What is clear from my relatively recent experience is that even with the required 50 mile ‘qualifier’ under their belts the range of entrants (both age & fitness) differs markedly. In many ways that is the great thing about the 100, everyone has their personal goal, be it a best time or just getting around the course in one piece in 48 hours.

Is it mental toughness as well as physical fitness? Absolutely, but do others, whether fellow participants, marshalls or spectators encourage you every step of the way to achieve your personal goal? Absolutely.

You will experience many emotions during the walk, many even hallucinate through lack of sleep. That all said, despite the all the pain, emotions, hallucinations and all types of weather the satisfaction of completing the challenge gives a ‘high’ that is hard to replicate. Why else do we return to participate year after year?