I feel that we are ready to put up this six-mile walk. There are loads of ways to track back for much shorter loops, or go further into Dunchurch, but this is the basic backbone of the walk. It starts and finishes at The Bear Pub, so food and drink are available if required.

Here is the link to the route www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/6333114661/

There are plenty of picnic benches along the path and smaller pedestal benches to rest at and enjoy the countryside views. This is what “Active Travel” is all about. An hour or so connecting with wildlife and nature, and getting your daily dose of the green stuff.

Today, five wildlife warriors cracked on (Marcus, Reece, Ian, Matt and Paul) and we started in the blistering cold. We had heavy snow yesterday and today was bitter. Not the type of weather to be standing around in, so we all got busy making scallop pockets and getting around the back of trees.

It feels good and the view from George’s bench is brilliant.

This view of the heath makes it all worthwhile.

I looked into a scallop and saw some good stuff.

Sunlight, bare earth, decaying wood, and lichen. As soon as the wildflowers start to pop up it will be a microcosm of wildlife.

We broke for a much-needed cup of hot coffee in our all-terrain mugs.

And fried up some more bacon. It really is the gift that keeps on giving from The Butchers of Bilton. Please check them out and visit them for delicious food.

Here is a useful thing to know – as you can see in the first photo, the bacon is not cooking. The butane canister was really cold because it had been in my garden shed. Butane will not burn properly because it will not vaporise when cold. We swapped the canister out for a warmer one and you can see in the second photo, the bacon started sizzling….

The amount of people coming past with envious looks in their eyes was loads. The smell of bacon wafting down the path reminded me of the old Bisto adverts.

Oops, there’s me showing my age!!

The whole path is looking good and getting loads of use. This tells us that we are on the right track.

Tool Talk Wednesday

We have a new canvas bag to help carry our kit about.

But it’s getting a bit ridiculous humping so much stuff up and down the path, so I might invest in a folding trolly like this below.

I have clicked on it on temu.com so it’s now just a case of waiting for a deal to drop into my lap!

Our YouTube of today for people who like to see it in video format.

The sun is harsh, but hopefully it shows where we are at.

Dunchurch Bridleway

We are slowly catching up with the Cawston path in terms of getting the “look” that we want.

Slowly the width will happen and then it’s just a case of maintaining it.

Again, we have some sort of bedstraw wildflower growing in the cleared edges, and an interesting fungus that I couldn’t identify.

It’s a good place to be because it is so deep into the countryside.

I have my eye on a bit of timber to make a couple of pedestal benches early next year. That will happen one way or another. We like to have a bench every 100 metres or so.

Lastly, Twitter or X as it is now called seems to have gone all political. I have opened an account on the platform called bluesky. Feel free to follow our progress at cawstongreenway.bsky.social if you like.

That’s it for this week.

Until next time!

Paul