{"id":199,"date":"2012-02-04T10:37:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-04T10:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?p=199"},"modified":"2017-12-08T08:02:37","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T08:02:37","slug":"grand-norfolk-hike-stage-6-shippea-hill-to-brandon-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/2012\/02\/grand-norfolk-hike-stage-6-shippea-hill-to-brandon-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Shippea Hill to Brandon"},"content":{"rendered":"

I walked this, the 6th stage of my\u00a0Grand Norfolk Hike<\/a>, on Sunday 29th January 2012.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\"Shippea
Shippea Hill to Brandon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a foggy, foggy morning when Jo kindly drove me out to Shippea Hill to pick-up the eastbound route of the Grand Hike. \u00a0The farm track alongside the railway is part of the Hereward Way<\/a> long distance footpath.<\/p>\n

The first 90 minutes of the walk took me over farmland and down country-lanes until crossing the railway line towards the Little Ouse river.<\/p>\n

Before arriving at the Little Ouse I stopped for a cuppa tea and chocolate.<\/p>\n

\"Tea
Tea break at Shepherd’s Fen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0landscape\u00a0changed from agricultural to wild fen and I imagined how William the Conquer’s troops must have been terrorised by the\u00a0guerrilla\u00a0warfare of the Fenmen led by Ely hero Hereward the Wake who knew the area so well.<\/p>\n

\"The
The fens of Botany Bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the path by Botany Bay I saw a young\u00a0Muntjac deer, we considered each other for a couple of minutes before it skipped off into the fen.<\/p>\n

Finally I reached the Little Ouse.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Little Ouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I followed the river for another two hours. \u00a0One of the drawbacks of winter walking is the lack of dry places to sit. \u00a0I did finally find a place to stop and eat my\u00a0delicious sausage and onion pastie\u00a0purchased\u00a0from our excellent local butcher in Ely.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Little Ouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally I reached Brandon. \u00a0I was feeling pretty tired after walking 13 miles and popped straight into The Ram for a lovely pint of\u00a0Rusty Bucket bitter, produced locally at the Brandon Brewery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A
A pint of Rusty Bucket at the Ram, Brandon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I took the train back to Ely, tired but happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 6th stage of the\u00a0Grand Norfolk Hike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,12],"tags":[36,32,33,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6583,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/6583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}