Wednesday 21st June 2017 Overseal - Barton-under-Needwood - 9 miles

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Overseal - Barton-under-Needwood - 9 miles


Today, we are going to close the gap and complete the whole Eastern section of our walk! More good weather and a good trip to Barton. Fortunately we remembered where we had parked previously , it all seemed so long ago - well it was last November!

Then back to Overseal to resume our walk from the community centre.

You leave Overseal on the road, before picking up footpaths that take you through trees and past pony paddocks - very pleasant on a warm day. You head through more young tree planting, not big enough for shade yet, with quite a lot of long grass. At one point we found ourselves covered in a strange sort of black 'soot' or pollen! We never did work out where it came from.

After a short section on road, we then joined paths marked National Forest trail again, starting off from someone's driveway and heading off, up, past woodland to cross several fields. We lost count, but eventually found the appropriate landmark to lead on to the promised track taking us to Botany Bay! Here we went into Penguin Wood (!) - not the most obvious name for a wood, but.......

Here, more young tree planting and fields take you on to join the lane into Rosliston. Here we found the pub was now a house, which scuppered plans of a cooling drink. So we decided on a lunch break in the churchyard, hoping for shade, but not before Marie had been to the local store for a cold drink and Linda had eyed up a plant stall! Its no wonder it takes us ages to get anywhere - but at least we support the local economy!

After lunch in the churchyard - benches but no shade - we continued out of Rosliston - to find the second village pub still fully operational ! You'd have thought by now we'd have learnt to read on! Never mind!

The section out of Rosliston is currently on roads due to 'problems with the footpath'! We had driven this way earlier so familiarity helped! As we finally left the road, to return to footpaths, we did consider re-considering - it took us into a paddock of very hot, grumpy looking cows, all sheltering at the field margin, just where we wanted to walk! Trying for invisibility, we picked up the pace and headed through! The footpath leads through several small fields, through small, wooden gates in varying stages of disrepair - we felt lucky not to break one entirely - before dropping down hill into Walton-on-Trent.

Here we decided to have a cooling drink at The White Swan, which looked very inviting and was directly on our route! We even stayed inside as it was cooler and very comfy! It also gave us a chance to plan the next stages of our route, so an essential planning meeting! Linda was able to suss out the interior design - an interesting use of old mis-matched doors to clad the walls and lots of natural wood and grey paint. Linda, as a landlady herself, has a professional interest in exploring hostelries which we all try to support!

Suitably refreshed, we headed out, the route again following the roads we had driven earlier, to cross Walton Bridge, a restricted width bridge over the River Trent. Fortunately it has a separate  pedestrian walkway as it is very narrow! It bears the scars of many vehicles paintwork despite being single lane and traffic light controlled!

You continue on the roads until you reach the road roundabout just outside Barton-under-Needwood. Here you take a footpath that takes you down to the towpath of the Trent and Mersey canal which you cross and then follow minor roads to Barton Marina - a leisure development around a large canal basin serving the canal. A footpath around a lake takes you out onto the road into Barton-under-Needwood.

We arrived just as the schools were finishing, so the place was full of children, Mums, cars, teenagers, school buses!! We even used the school crossing patrol to cross to the War Memorial for our finishing photo, which an obliging teenager took! I think people thought we were a bit bonkers - the crossing patrol man definitely did!

So, we had completed our Eastern section, Boston to Welshpool completed, with only about 68 Welsh miles to go! At Overseal, we checked diaries and set dates for four more day hops and a trip to Barmouth to finish. We aim to finish on Wednesday 27th September 2017!!