13 hikers turned out on Sunday morning for an 18 mile circular walk from Pakenham.

Saturday evening had seen lots of heavy rain and wind but we were lucky to have, not only a dry day but a sunny day too.

Debbie led us on a great walk … and we stopped for lunch at the lovely Langham church.

I was certainly pleased I had made the effort to go after only just getting home from my skiing holiday.

For me it was an 86 mile round trip, made so much easier now that I have my Tomtom.

No route of the walk… as Geoff and the GPS are still in Les Gets  🙁

As Geoff flies to his apartment in the french Alps on Tuesday, for the whole of January.

Today was our last chance for a good walk together for a few weeks.

I decided I would like to do one of my favourite walks from Cambridge to Anglesey Abbey.

One of the reasons I wanted to go was to see the stunning Himalayan silver Birch trees.

I have often wondered why these trees always seem so sparkling and smooth, compared to other silver birch trees that I have seen.

I now know the answer ………. A lot of water and elbow grease.

As quoted by Richard Todd, head gardener for the Abbey 

"its because we wash them. we use a pressure washer at the beginning of November and once more during the winter season. It takes best part of a day but the impact on the garden is huge." 

So that is the secret for anyone wanting to try this at home 🙂

A bracing 17 mile walk in the winter cold taking around 5 hours.

Geoff’s Everytrail route can be seen here

Sunday 21st of December was the shortest day of the year.. yes spring is on its way 🙂

We celebrated the day by doing what we love most… walking.

It was an early 9am start from Balsham with the Cambridge Rambling club.

Where we did a 14 mile circular walk with 14 other people, happy to be out in the lovely winter sun.

The leaders of the walk, Larry and Margaret magically produced  mulled wine and mince pies  out their ruc sacs for us all to enjoy during our mid morning break.

A great way to spend Solstice day .

Route and more photos can be seen here  and here

To me nothing beats a day along the coast in the winter.

I love to feel the wind through my hair and hear the crashing of the waves.

It blows the cob webs away and makes me feel happy and alive.

Even nicer when you can share it with someone special too  🙂

We finished the day off with a lovely meal at Bradley’s in Kings Lynn, A perfect way to end a perfect day.

Geoff’s EveryTrail route and photos can be seen here…

Today we met up with the Southern Norfolk Group Ramblers for a 13 mile ramble from Santon Downham.

It was nice to see some familiar faces and catch up with all the news.

Amazingly it was Paul’s 61st time at leading a walk and 20 other walkers turned out to join him.

We had much better weather this week and the colours through the woods were often beautiful.

My feet did not get so wet this week but my boots are causing me a great deal of concern, you expect an expensive pair of boots to last longer than 9 months.

The boots were also a replacement to another faulty pair, of the same make.

Never did I expect the new pair to get the same fault.

An E-mail to Asolo is the next step.

Geoff did his usual great walk route over at Everytrail

When you walk any of the Camino long distance walks in Spain you need a passport.

Its known as The Credencial del Peregrino.

The Credencial del Peregrino,  is a sort of pilgrim passport that is stamped along the way and serves as proof at Santiago that you have indeed followed the pilgrim route and deserve a Compostela.

The Compostela is the certificate awarded at the end of the journey.

The passport  is also required if one intends to stay at any of the refuges along the camino .

Alas mine only has 6 stamps……. so no Compostela for me just yet 🙂

We did most of our walking in 30deg sunshine, I never expected it to be that hot and I loved to see the sun in late September/early October.

I did feel the heat on day four which was our longest walking day of 38km, by the time we finished my legs were sore with sunburn 🙁

Although this is a very quiet walk we did meet a few lovely people, there was Andrea from Germany with her Polish boyfriend also Michael and Manuel who shared breakfast with me on my birthday 🙂

Here are a few photos….

you can find all my photos here