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.