I caught the Retford bus and travelled to Sutton Crossroads in Nottinghamshire and walked down the short access road to the Idle Valley Visitor Centre, which was still closed, and the car park blocked off. I got lost only a couple of hundred yards beyond the visitor centre; I couldn't find the footpath that goes over to Sutton-cum-Lound and so after doing a bit of looping, criss-crossing, and doubling back and therefore inadvertently doing quite a bit of exploring of the nature reserve I finally arrived at the riverside path and followed the River Idle downstream for a couple of miles.
This southern part of the nature reserve, near to Retford and therefore easy to reach on public transport is far more interesting than the area further north which is much more open and consists mainly of recently flooded old gravel or sand quarries. It was over two hours until I reached a paved road, going from some light industrial units to Lound. I only took one photograph in Lound.
I took a few photographs in Sutton. I didn't walk up to the church though because a funeral was taking place.
I kept on walking down the road to Barnby Moor. I had to wait for a couple of minutes at the level crossing but still arrived at the bus stop with twenty minutes to spare - enough time for a heavy shower to come and go.
I'd been travelling on the bus for a few minutes when it was being driven at high speed through a large deep puddle on the road. Because of covid regulations all of the windows were open and most of the passengers got soaked. I was already wet and so didn't really mind, some of the other passengers weren't very happy though.
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