It's not a race.

That was rather unkind of me yesterday, wasn't it, I'm so sorreeeeee. A little bit of April the 1st tomfoolery. I did speak to the man at the fair, and he did say they were looking for drivers, but the rest was my little fantasy. Ah well, it's nice to dream, back to reality.

This isn't fantasy though, it's true, I walked 20 miles today, yipeee. You do believe me don't you ;0) I wanted to beat last weeks walk of 18 miles, so I worked the route out first and checked the distance before I started out. I set off at 10.15, behind the church then along the hills above the River Trent. I decided to stay local for this walk.

The footbridge here used to be wooden, but the youths kept chopping it up and making bonfires with it. So now it has been replaced with a new aluminium one. They also had to replace all the wooden sign posts as well, for the same reason.

I never tire of this view even though I have seen it many times before.

A bit further along I came to lots of parked vehicles, vans and cars with trailers, then I realised what they were doing. The local scrambling club were out in force, there must have been about fifty of them. The noise of reving engines is not something I want to hear in the countryside, so I quickly marched on and left them behind.

As you come into Alkborough there is a good view of the flood plains. The plaque on the plinth shows a map of all the places you can see from this viewpoint.

Alkborough Church is well cared for, with immaculately cut lawns.

Pressing on, I only stopped for short food and drink breaks. The weather was ok, sunny with a few clouds. I passed through Whitton and arrived at Winteringham Haven at the Humberside Yacht Club. Everyone looked busy getting their boats ready for sailing.

The footpaths are very well maintained in this quiet corner of North Lincolnshire, but they do tend to plough over those that pass through the middle of a field. Here the farmer has kindly marked the way with two sticks. Sometimes it seems natural to follow the tractor marks across but this doesn't always apply when the path goes diagonally from one corner to another.

This one seems pretty clear which way to go, but half way across the path veers off to the right, away from the tracks. You need to look for the sign post or a stile in the distance to give you some idea of the direction.

Here the farmer has planted the whole field up, then put the marker sticks in, and flattened the plants where the path should be. Seems a bit sad to destroy plants that are already growing.

I had to put my waterproofs on before I got back as the weather turned very windy and wet. I arrived back home at 6.15pm, it really shouldn't have taken that long, but it was my fault, I will stop and chat to people. Never mind, the main purpose was to do the distance, it wasn't a race. Phew, I'm off to bed now, I'm a little bit tired.