The latest adventure in our group took us back to the sleepy village of Kintbury, situated half way approximately between the West Berkshire towns of Newbury and Hungerford. Due to engineering works those that took public transport had to get the rail replacement bus from Newbury today. However everyone in the group, fourteen of us, met our walk leader Clare in good time and managed to make prompt start at 10.45am.
We frequent Kintbury on a fairly regular occurrence over the years and in many instances the route we take us southwards towards Warbury Hill. However, today it was a little different and heading east along the Kennet and Avon Canal for a good couple of miles. Unusually the tow path and canal were very quite and not much activity could be observed: it defined tranquility. We approached and then went beyond Shepherds Bridge and Dreweat’s Lock before leaving the towpath at Hamstead Lock. The walk then took us through the rather delightful Hamstead Park, passing the odd fishpond the group stopped briefly to marvel at the views.
It was not long before we stopped and settled down to have our picnic lunches. It was an ideal time to refuel for those of us (well the author of this blog anyway!) who were struggling a little after a late evening at a local Reading nightspot. Lunch completed we advanced through small woodland. It was here that our walk leader Clare thought she could see a dead sheep on its back with its feet up in the air perhaps a couple hundred metres into the distance. Most of us thought she was mad and presumed it may have been a peculiar shaped rock; I mean, a dead sheep with legs up the air! As some of us walked past, Leah broke free from the back of our group and sprinted to have a closer inspection. It turned out it was a sheep after all. Rather than a dead shop it was certainly alive and well but had fallen down a small ditch, fell over and got himself stuck with his legs up in the air. Leah came to its rescue and after a few seconds managed to free the sheep from its peril and all seemed well again. Well, this was something new to happen to us on one of our walks.
We soon left Hamstead Park behind and continued towards the village of Hamstead Marshall, taking care along the country road. Thankfully the road section was fairly brief and before long we took a left and approached the Stray Dog Centre. The loud continuous barking made us in doubt what or rather whom was being housed in the buildings.
After this we progressed through more fields and further woodland where we did our best to try and lose a member of the group. I won’t mention any names – they know who they are – but they needed to leave the group for a moment or two and took shall we say a slightly longer than expected route to return to the group. It required a few shouts to identify their whereabouts but within a couple of minutes we had located each other. It was quite easy to lose your bearings here as the foliage was a little dense and somewhat overgrown in places.
The weather was yet again being kind to us. Up to this point we have had very few what we would classify as “wet walks” during 2015. It remained dry for the remainder of the walk and the sun even broke through towards the end.
We approached Kintbury on the footpath that connects the village to Inkpen Common further south. On arrival in the village a decision was made and we headed to the pub for well earned liquid refreshment.