Last weekend we bagged another 20 miler in our local county of Lincolnshire, the Tennyson Twenty.
With the recent announcement that campsites in England can reopen we had hoped to venture slightly further afield however we quickly discovered that us and half the nation had similar ideas and beat us to the punch when it came to booking!
We came across the Tennyson Twenty via the Long Distance Walking Association (LDWA) website, of which we have recently become a member.
The Tennyson Twenty route circles the village of Somersby located in the heart of the Lincolnshire Wolds, which is the birthplace of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Victorian Poet Laureate.
I love a good long distance day hike as I get to make a mean packed lunch!
We parked in the village of Hagworthingham and set off on our merry way.
The route itself isn't labelled or posted as such, it's just a series of public footpaths and bridleways put together to create a circular route. It was clearly not a popular route as the only people we came across were in local villages and dog walkers, however this in itself was quite nice. At the village of Tetford the route crosses the Greenwich Meridian which is pretty cool!
On a couple of occasions the footpath went straight through people's gardens (not ideal with grizzly dogs barking!), and I don't know about you but depending on the access this can feel a little uncomfortable and intrusive. Having said that we now know that we can take alternative routes if we were to ever do the walk again to avoid these pinch points.
We also noticed quite a few signs and detours in place due to Covid 19 which is understandable and something to factor in for future walks.
As always we were looking for a perfect lunch spot for several miles, until we came across a perfectly positioned bench just past Burwell Hall as the route takes you off the main road. We had joked for the previous few miles about there being a bench, and then as if by magic there was one right in front of us.
Just before we arrived at the village of South Thoresby we came upon a marshy section of field, which we were both quite surprised about considering it was pretty good weather. The section was semi covered in duck boards, however we did unfortunately have to get our feet a little wet as there was no other way around. Both being complete advocates of Topo Ultraventure shoes, our feet quickly dried out.
We also came across our first UK snake whilst out hiking, which we think was a grass snake. It slithered away before I could get it's pic!
There was a long section of road walking from South Thoresby to Calceby however the road itself wasn't too busy with a grass verge to walk along if required.
The last few miles we were tiring, so rather than slow down we sped up ... makes sense right! It ended up being closer to 22 miles than twenty, which took just over 8 hours, so not too shabby.
The Tennyson Twenty was a lovely calm, quiet walk with some beautiful views over the wolds ... one to have in our back pocket for future!
Now to plan a long distance hike for the end of Summer, where shall we go?! Stay in the UK or go to Europe ... stay tuned!
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