#26 Great Barford and Roxton the Sequel.

#26 Great Barford and Roxton

Distance - 7.19 miles
Ascent - 28 metres

Earlier in the week I did a 5 mile walk along the Ouse with a loop round Roxton.  I thought I'd come back and do the full Great Barford/Tempsford loop, mainly before the nettles get much higher (they are growing and growing!).  The weather was perfect, I arrived with plenty of time, I was in no rush, what could go wrong?

The Ouse



The section between Great Barford and Roxton is fairly well known to me now.  It's a flat walk along the river, it's quite nice and easy to follow.  As I mentioned last time the rubbish in the trees does detract a little but it is/was offset by the wildlife on show, swans, ducks, birds (I'm such a twitcher...) and butterflies.  The river is very slow (artificially so due to the weirs and locks) and you would be hard pressed to work out which direction it flows in for most of the walk.

#25 Great Barford to Roxton

#25 Great Barford to Roxton

Distance - 6.21 miles
Ascent - 11 metres

Back to regular haunts down the River Great Ouse.  On a nice Saturday afternoon I had planned just to take a wander to Roxton Locks and back.  Should of been about 5 miles long but I decided to extend it slightly with a walk through the village of Roxton.

The river walk was as quiet as usual and it wont be long before the nettles invade again.  The river bank was showing signs of the wet winter, a clear brown 'tide' mark along with (unfortunately) quite a bit of rubbish caught in the tree branches.  It spoilt to whole calm river ambiance to be honest, no thoughts of a wind in the willows style of scene when their are carrier bags blowing in the willows.

The lock and weir had more water flowing through it than I had seen in a while (I avoided the path in the floods), last year it was more like a trickle over the weir.  This year there was more of a rolling rumble.  Much more exciting (if weirs can be exciting to a passer by, more exciting to a boat owner I'd guess!).

The village of Roxton was very pleasant and quiet.  Didn't spot a pub or a shop, but that's quite normal these days.  However even on a quiet Saturday you never escape the 'hum' of the A1.  Would be nice to live in the middle of nowhere someday!

Well a short and sweet posting!

And Finally...

Great Barford - Tempsford - Blunham Loop.

Distance - 11.4Km
Time Taken - 2Hrs 10mins
Ascent - 22m

After 2 failed attempts (1 due to bad admin, 1 due to plumber!) I finally got this loop out of the way.  Overall the walk is very gentle (a whole 22m of ascent!) and a pleasent walk on the whole.  Lots of wildlife to see along the two rivers, I have seen Kingfishers there in previous years.

The walk is mainly along the Great Ouse and the River Ivel, the Ouse is a slow moving navigationable river (hence the locks and weirs), whilst the Ivel is much smaller but has some flow.  The Ouse on previous days was quite bland and grey, the sun helped bring out a bit of colour and it felt like a spring day.  The walk to Roxton locks is gentle, hardly taxing and like all this route easy to follow.  In a few places the Ouse appears to be a dirty river, with rubbish caught in the reed beds and on some tree branches but mostly it's just a gentle sweeping river.