On May 1st I managed to get a few hours to get out alone and go walking.  I’d planned a 3.5mi walk but it turned out to be a 5.5 mile walk.  What a great place to go walking.  There were two separate wooded area’s.  Once was Archers Wood

About this wood

Parts of Archer’s Wood are believed to be remnants of the original British wildwood, a ditch and bank in the northern section is a scheduled ancient monument and, true to its name the wood was a sanctuary for highwaymen. Even today you look to the north and imagine a 14th century Cistercian monastic grange that once stood there. Flat and easy to access, the site is dominated by oak, ash and field maple and served by a figure-of-eight network of rides so it’s great for gentle walks. Be sure to stroll along the main ride to spot the rare and beautiful wild service tree – and look out for foxes, woodpeckers and nuthatches.

The other was Aversley Wood, both just outside of Sawtry, Cambridgeshire.

About this wood

A woodland gem in England’s least-wooded county, expansive, impressive Aversley Wood is well worth the steep trek (sometimes boggy in winter) required to reach it. Believed to date back to the Ice Age, it is one of Cambridgeshire’s largest ancient woodland sites and a full tour is not for the faint-hearted – but very rewarding, with impressive fenland views.

You can see the full route of the walk with notes along the way by going to www.stepwhere.com.  I’ve been using this site for storing and planning my recent walks.  You can see all my public walks by going to my user name, M1XZG.  The process I’ve been doing with the site is planning the walk online and loading the track onto my GPS, then, when I’m out walking I record the actual track I walk and upload that to www.stepwhere.com. 

To see some photos from the walk of the woods you can CLICK HERE for my www.flickr.com gallery.  Here are a couple of the photos.

If you get out walking why not share your routes?   Also, why not check out www.walkingforum.co.uk – it’s a fantastic site for all manner of walking discussions.

A detailed account of the walk …

I started by parking in the small lot that services a large open park and allotment area off St Judith’s Lane.  Walking out of the car park I turned right and followed the road to a “T” junction, 1.6 km (1 mi)  This is where you can enter Archers Wood.  Just inside the wood is a map, I had a quick study of the map and planned my route sort of through the wood.  I figured I’d walk the outside route around the wood.  The paths were mostly dry and in very good condition.  There was one detour put in place due to some flooding of the path but that was it for any sort of problems.  The wood is mostly on an incline and that was at the lowest end of the wood.  The rest of the wood was very dry with only a few muddy spots from the recent rains.  Through out the wood there are very nice benches placed in excellent locations providing nice views through cuttings or paths in the wood.  I didn’t find any wildlife except birds while walking through this wood, however there was plenty of evidence of small game by the number of rabbit runs.  If it weren’t for the din of A1(M) very close by this would be a perfect place to come and reflect on life and enjoy the quiet.

Exiting the wood by the same gate I entered by, I turned left and continued to follow St Judith’s Lane for just about 1 km (0.6 mi), just past a large farm on the right side of the road you’ll find the Public Path sign.  Follow the path for 1.7 km (1 mi) and that will bring you to one of the entrances to the Aversley Wood.   About 260m before the entrance is a park bench.  This is where I’d stopped to break out my stove and kettle and make a cup of tea and some lunch.  After about a 30min break or so I packed up and headed into the wood.  This was another spectacular wooded area.  The paths were well maintained and very wide with ample chances to sit on benches and reflect and enjoy the quiet.  Because of the geography of this wood there was pretty no noise from the outside world at all.  The only thing to be heard was the rustling of  leafs and the birds.  Again, I didn’t see any wildlife but it’s clear it exists from all of the small game runs.  I did see what I think might be badger tracks, I meant to take a snap of them to check it out but meh, forgot   After quite some time walking around the wood I finally left via the North Eastern most corner with a gentle ascent up a hill then down the other side right back to the park where I started off.  

The total distance was 8.9km (5.6mi).  The weather really couldn’t have been more perfect, it was sunny but a little cool so it made walking not too hot.  Sitting idle you could feel the cold after a while, but it was very nice. 

I’m looking forward to future walk and hope to plan for a number of them to be through wooded areas like these.

Lisa and Emma immediately found the horses in the fields to go and see plus a swing set to play on as well. I was a bit worried for a while, there were no other kids around. Then, a family came trooping back into camp. They’d been out to the Banham Zoo. It’s about 1/2 mile down the road. Anyhow, Lisa and Emma quickly became acquainted with Hanna, 7yrs old. They spent the next 3 or so hours playing all sorts of games and running around the farm.

The camp site itself is a small family run business. It’s run the brother of our neighbour, very nice folks. They popped around to check on us and see how we were settling in. Quite layed back, they haven’t asked for money as yet. The site is, as I mentioned, small. Only about 6 or so pitches, most with electric. We didn’t bother with that, I’d brought the 120amp battery with us. More then enough power for the week to run a laptop if needed and charge the phones. I brought a 12v florescent lamp as well but likely won’t need it.

The kids are knackered. They’ve had a busy afternoon that’s for sure. Tomorrow we’ll be walking to the zoo and checking out the animals and whatever else they have there.

Well that’s about it from here tonight I think. the big people are knackered too and ready for bed now as well.

Watch this space for the day 2 report. I won’t be posting pics on the blog, but check on facebook, flickr and mobypictures and of course Twitter.com/m1xzg for updates.

Btw, this is all from my phone, there are likely spelling errors, I will fix them later. Don’t think I have a spell check on here.

Posted by Wordmobi

I’ve been using WordPress now for what.. nearly 3 years I think.. maybe only 2, can’t remember. But I’m dead impressed with it… I’ve been watching all of the WordCamp events around the world and waiting for one to come up here.. I know they had a 2008 one in the UK, however I missed that completely for some reason..

Check out the WordCamp UK website:

http://wiki.wordcampuk.tonyscott.org.uk/Main_Page

And follow them on Twitter too: http://twitter.com/wordcampuk

I hope to meet loads of people there.. sounds like it should be great fun!

#wordcampuk

[flickr video=3043417693]

Check out all the pics and videos taken at the pool today .. CLICK HERE

From the MAGPAS website they say:

Community First Responders are non-medical volunteers who save lives in their local town or village.

Magpas fully trains all Community First Responders and also provides the vital equipment they need to make a difference to patients. We organise our Community First Responders into local groups and currently have 33 such groups across Cambridgeshire. The types of emergencies they attend include choking, cardiac arrests and strokes.

Basically, MAGPAS really limits the range that it’s responders are dispatched to, generally around about 3 miles from home, so really that means in your own village and very very near by areas just outside.  This provides a very quick response time with very little travelling.  This can in some cases mean saving a life or not.  In some places, such as Canada, a lot of the time the fire fighters are fully trained as first responders and can do everything a MAGPAS responder can do, this means when a 911 call is placed a fire crew will roll as well as the ambulance crew.  The obvious disadvantage of this system is the cost of man power and equipment expenses in having to dispatch a fully loaded fire truck with a crew.  However, it can also mean the difference between life and death for the casualty depending on the distance the ambulance crew has to travel.

This weekend (Sep 6/7) I was on the first bit of training under MAGPAS.  This was a modified First Aid course run by St John Ambulance.   The focus of the course is on situations that MAGPAS volunteers are called out for, such as:

• Fainting
• Shock
• Allergic Reactions (Anaphylactic Shock)
• Seizures
• Hyperglycaemia / Hypoglycaemia
• Strokes
• Asthma Attacks
• Choking
• Cardiac Arrest
• Angina and Heart Attacks

The second part of the training for me will be in early November and will cover the use of portable Defibrillators, insertion of airways  and administering pure Oxygen.  I’m looking forward to that course.  There will also be more emphasis on improving our CPR skills.  Part of this weekends course was having to do 8-9 sets of compressions and rescue breaths, so about 5-6 minutes of non-stop CPR.  It sure does tire you out.  I’m sure in real life there would be a rush of adrenalin that would help to keep you going, but it sure would tire you out if it went on for an extended period of time.  Currently, we aren’t called out for such things as traffic accidents, trauma cases, severe bleeding cases or calls involving children under the age of 8.  These are only attended by the normal ambulance service and MAGPAS doctors and paramedics (Medic250 as they are called).

All things being well, I should be on the local rota late November or early December and starting to respond to call-outs.

So, I decided to take her with me.  The question was where too.  I decided to take her to Wicken Fen again.  We’d gone there before (Wicken Fen…) with Lisa’s school.  That visit was good for the kids but we didn’t really get to see too much of the place.  Today when we went back we’d ended up walking about 1.25 to 1.5 miles around part of the area.  Lisa had a good time but sure was tired.  Surprisingly she didn’t fall asleep on the way back home.

There are some pics and a video from the day HERE – here are some samples.

Anyhow, I took a load of pics which you can see if you CLICK HERE.  Some samples of the pics.