Castor - Hanglands Nature Reserve - Bretton - Castor

Malcolm Watts

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The walk starts in the pleasant village of Castor with its prominent church and continues to Ailsworth. After a little road-walking, the busy A47 is crossed and the nature reserve encountered. This can be challenging after wet weather with mud of Biblical proportions, though passable with determination and waterproof footwear. By way of reward, The Granary Tea Room is a few metres off the route shortly beyond and is well worth a visit, along with the associated farm shop. Back to farmland, tracks and a lane, the route passes close to the Bretton Centre, an area of supermarkets and chain stores.

The last leg crosses a very lively golf course, where golfers may well regard bouncing a white ball off an unsuspecting walker as a bonus. Crossing the fairways needs care, vigilance and preferably a brisk pace.

Finally, Castor is gained, though not without a stile which may require bushwacking skills and some agility!

England - East England - Cambridgeshire - Countryside

Features

Birds, Butterflies, Church, Flowers, Food Shop, Mostly Flat, Nature Trail, Tea Shop, Wildlife, Woodland
2/20/2023 - Malcolm Watts

Waypoints 6 and 8 edited, hopefully making it a bit clearer. There really aren't any landmarks in the Hanglands Nature Reserve, so keep heading North warmed by the Midday Sun on your back.

2/18/2023 - Neville Young

We very much enjoyed this walk, thank you. It worked well also for our dog although if she had been less gung-ho about the stiles it might have been a bit trickier. We thought the navigation coming up to WP7 was a little unclear. The directions in part 6 talk about "passing through various gates en route" but on approach to 7 you don't know if that last gate is another one of those ... should you go through it (no!) or go with the path to your left. There's nothing that makes it definitive either way so we just did it by trial and error. The waypoints are too few to help you to nail this down easily. I'd love someone to look at this with unfamiliar eyes and try to see how to make it clearer. We also had trouble with the transition between 8 and 9. We seemed to be being told to "stay ahead here" when you really need to do an absolutely clear left turn onto the PFP at WP9. I do get where it says the path is a bit mixed up across there to 10 but I wasted time trying to understand what do do there when a clear instruction to stay on the PFP by turning left would have removed doubt. Otherwise the nav was clear and helpful, thanks. As you suggest, we just followed the bearing across the gold course! We hated the road crossings but they are a necessary evil, and probably not as dangerous as they look. We survived, anyway. The Castor Hanglands Nature Reserve bit is fantastic! It is a real highlight of this walk. We also very much liked all the general cross-country weebling around between about 9 and 12. Castor is very pretty and worth a close r look! Thanks again for a nice walk.