....walking with the millers ....the roman walk

...we decided over crisps, dips, and other assorted high calorie christmas snacks, that we were indulging ourselves with while entertaining the millers, that we should get out and exercise a bit more.... shed a few christmas pounds ...and maybe a few of the all year round pounds! so we wanted something we could all do, that could involve luke and jonathan, and was achievable... so walking is where it's at. fortnightly weekend walks in our beautiful local countryside (or you never know we might explore a city or two! - who knows!!)

so today for walk no.1 we headed off to lanchester for the lanchester roman walk a five and a half mile affair taking on some roman features of the landscape. following the route illustrated the need to utilise both the written instructions and the map, not one or the other, to find your way! we set off on the old railway line avoiding the right hand fork as instructed... easy so far... and looking for the marked public footpath to the left.... "it says nothing about a bridge" someone said "we may have gone too far" as we stood looking puzzled at the map. two people had just walked by dressed in"normal" clothes as lynne put it. "amateurs!" i said... although i expect due to how lean and fit they looked they were out for a 15 mile yomp before breakfast and because it wasn't a "big one" for them they didn't see the need for all the walking gear we had turned up in for our extensive 5.5 miler! we asked them nothing despite our predicament but rather asked two approachable looking dog walkers who were exceptionally helpful and agreed with us we had missed the turning and gone to far. they escorted us back to the correct turning point! the shame of it!

the rest of the walk went well with no errors of map reading! me 'n' millers skills of interpretation improved as we went on with the occasional observation from the girls ....as you can imagine!!!

we passed through several farms, passed the lanchester dairy, across fields and stiles, even crossing the stream on the stepping stones that were dangerously slippy! we took in middlewood farm and went down the hill to colepike mill where, with the stream in sight we drank coffee and ate christmas cake. then onto cadger bank and back into lanchester, 5 and a half miles fitter!

.....luke managed the walk well. it wasn't particularly difficult. a couple of steep uphill sections but generally a comfortable walk. the last section into lanchester was a little scary as you were on a busy road, without a path, for about quarter of a mile. but other than that this was a lovely little walk and set us up a treat for the rest of the weekend.... now.... pizzas methinks...