Fishlake, Sykehouse, Moss, and Askern

I travelled to Fishlake, explored the part of the village near the church for a few minutes and then headed northwards along a bridleway towards Fosterhouses.  To begin with I took a footpath which starts at the back of the churchyard rather than walking through most of the village.

About half a mile of the bridleway north of Fishlake was completely overgrown with bramble, nettles, and thistles, maybe four foot high in places and very dense. If I hadn't been wearing my thick. heavy hiking trousers I wouldn't have attempted it. As it was my arms and legs were stinging and itching, and still are now...I'm looking forward to soaking in a hot bath in a few minutes.

I then walked over to Sykehouse Lock and crossed over the New Junction Junction Canal and took the middle of the three approximately  parallel footpaths that go to Sykehouse. Walking over to Sykehouse I disturbed a deer and it ran out in front of me, only a few yards away - a bit later the same thing happened with a hare.

After walking through the village and then along the road I found a path which eventually came out on the road, just to the east of Moss.

[The electric fence was protecting me.]

The level crossing at Moss is the most interesting thing to photograph there.

I walked along the road for the rest of the way back to Askern. I arrived just a few seconds before the bus did, it was pure coincidence though.

Askern, Braithwaite, Kirkhouse Green, and Thorne

I'm glad that I thought to check online; there were no trains running to Sheffield today because of engineering works and so I had plenty of time to make alternative arrangements to go on a local walk. It's quite limited where I can get on the buses on a Sunday though but I could catch a bus to Askern, and got off on Moss Road.

I walked down Heyworth Lane until I reached a footpath which came out onto the road near Trumfleet Grange. There were some giant vegetables in the garden of the first roadside cottage I passed; onions as big as skulls, tomatoes as big as a fist, and a marrow [I think] nearly two foot long hanging from the vine. As I approached my first farm of the day I took my first photographs...of a friendly alpaca. Alpacas are never really that friendly though because they can spit at you, fortunately this one didn't.

I saw some more alpacas a few minutes later in a distant field, they were too far away to take any pictures though.

Just before reaching the road near to Trumfleet Green I helped a couple of young women on horseback plot a route using bridleways and tracks and staying away from roads as much as possible - they weren't carrying a map. There aren't many bridleways in this area and so I wasn't really very successful - I think I might have educated them a bit about OS maps though. I'm assuming there are specific maps designed for horse riders...but a highlighter pen on a traditional map will suffice I suppose.

Surprisingly I only needed to use one crossing over a railway line today; there are a lot of railway lines in this area north of Doncaster though.

I popped into the cafe at Braithwaite for a pot of tea; it's just someone serving a limited range of drinks and snacks from their kitchen, but there's a nice seating area in the front garden. I spent all of my time here chatting with the owners and a female cyclist who'd just arrived...today was the first day of her retirement.

I arrived at the lift bridge just in time to catch it in operation.

I walked along the dead straight towpath alongside the New Junction Canal for about a mile until I reached the next lift bridge, at Kirkhouse Green. This time it was lowered, I looked and there was no sign of another boat approaching.

I continued along the towpath for at least another mile and a half until I reached Sykehouse Lock; a cruiser had just passed through. I crossed over the canal using the walkway along the top of the lock gates.

I walked along  another short stretch of road and then it was various footpaths across the fields until I reached the wooden road bridge across the River Don.

At one location between Sykehouse Lock and the river the footpath became totally impassable; overgrown with nettles, thistles, and brambles as tall as me. After struggling for several minutes and regretting that I hadn't brought my fold-up, packable machete I just headed in a straight line across the meadows hoping to pick up my intended route further on. In this flat and featureless landscape I had to use my compass, for the first time this year.

Although it was an easy walk today, my bites, stings, cuts, and scratches were starting to annoy me as I walked the last couple of miles to the bus stop at Thorne. I enjoyed my long soak in the bath when I got home...I would have posted the details of today's walk earlier if my internet hadn't been down for three hours.