Wellingore to Marston: E2 Day 83

My highlight was the sun coming out this afternoon and lighting up the bright yellow cowslips in a churchyard.

Older buildings in the villages today and yesterday were either made of red bricks or else a creamy to sandy orange limestone, sometimes both, all with a red tiled roof. The limestone also appeared in walls where I could look more closely at the white, yellow and black lichen that was slowly colonizing its surface. Where these walls separated fields they had been left to tumble down, no longer necessary as the fields were all of young crops or ploughed ready for crops. The hawthorn hedges were also no longer functional, with gaps between the individual bushes.

My first stretch was over large open fields in the misty morning light, the path cutting a straight if diagonal line. I noticed what looked like Second World War pill pillboxes, but a little research suggested they were old concrete bunkers around what was once RAF Wellingore. There were many airfields in the area during the war.

Ermine Street was a section of today's walk, I had been looking forward to hiking this old Roman road, an elegant straight line crossing the map, also called "High Dike". I was disappointed. The first few kilometres followed by the Viking Way were also used by recreational off road vehicles. The 4 x 4s had dug deep and muddy ruts in the ground. A later section was by a moderately busy road, and although the path was quite separate from the road it had been neglected. In one section trees had been planted some years ago, protected by plastic sheathing. Sadly the plastic had not been removed and the bark of the trees had partly grown over it. Throughout there was rubbish and random fly tipping, and although I had seen worse in other places it made it difficult to image a cohort of soldiers marching where I was now walking almost 2000 years earlier. 

Tracks of off-roaders on Ermine Street.

On the plus side the sporadic cherry trees alongside the track were in beautiful blossom and there was a café (and therefore coffee and cake) where Ermine Street crossed a more modern road. The place was called Byards Leap after a horse who was involved in ridding the village of a witch. Stories vary but all involve the horse making a huge leap now marked by horse shoes cemented in the ground.

Leaving Ermine Street, as I crossed more fields the mist and clouds dispersed and the sun began to shine. While I have walked in rain and wind, and on dull and cloudy days, my pleasure is greater when the sun spreads her light. The grass glows greener and the wayside flowers look brighter. There were white and purple dead nettle and bright yellow dandelions although I found the best flowers in the churchyard of the curiously named village of Carlton Scroop. Cowslips surrounded the gravestones and there was an excellent display of primulas of many colours. The church was open. Its interior was simple with white painted walls. In the visitors book there were a smattering of people who wrote they were walking the Viking Way and even one (a person from Verona, Italy) who was, like me, following the British section of the E2 European Long Distance Path.

Path beside ploughed field.

Cowslips in the graveyard of the Church of St. Nicholas in Carlton Scroop.

Path in the sun.

On the final section of today's walk I again walked beside the River Witham, smaller here than when I followed it east of Lincoln. A little after I past a sewerage works, or rather a "Water Recycling Centre". This one involved sending the waste water through a series of reed lined ponds to clean it up. A few geese were sampling the progress. In the distance trains glided up and down the electrified main east coast line. 

Tonight I am staying at "Ye Olde Barn", despite the cheesy name it has a very modern, red brick appearance. My ensuite bathroom off my large bedroom even has "his and hers" washbasins, no doubt to justify the very expensive cost. So I have been investigating campsites and cheaper, if simpler, accommodation for the next few days.