{"id":220,"date":"2012-02-11T15:43:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T15:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?p=220"},"modified":"2016-07-08T10:28:06","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T10:28:06","slug":"grand-norfolk-hike-stage-6-shippea-hill-to-brandon-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/2012\/02\/grand-norfolk-hike-stage-6-shippea-hill-to-brandon-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Stage 7: Littleport to Downham Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I walked this, the 7th stage of my\u00a0<a title=\"More info on the hike\" href=\"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?p=78\">Grand Norfolk Hike<\/a>, on Sunday 5th Feburary 2012.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_227\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-227\" style=\"width: 607px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-227\" title=\"Littleport to Downham Market\" src=\"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/lunapic_132897579375336_1.gif\" alt=\"Littleport to Downham Market\" width=\"607\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/lunapic_132897579375336_1.gif 607w, https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/lunapic_132897579375336_1-300x242.gif 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 607px) 100vw, 607px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-227\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Littleport to Downham Market<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?page_id=149\">You can see a map of the hike so far<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It had snowed the night before and I was keen to get outside and see how the Fens looked covered in white.<\/p>\n<p>I decided to walk up the Great Ouse from Littleport before taking a left and hiking out across farmland until I reached the Old Bedford River. \u00a0Most of the farm tracks hadn&#8217;t been touched by human feet but plenty of animals had criss-crossed the path as I could see by footprints they&#8217;d left behind.<\/p>\n<p>All the drains and ditches were iced over.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A frozen drain near Littleport\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/-XoiQpvCcEcg\/TzZ_cMv3fDI\/AAAAAAAAA-A\/i-L2NhhD4Lo\/s400\/DSCN1116.JPG\" alt=\"A frozen drain near Littleport\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A frozen drain near Littleport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I had estimated it would take an hour to reach the Old Bedford River but I ended up taking twice as long. \u00a0I seriously underestimated the distance from Littleport.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Old Bedford River\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/-9y3C5yA2RTw\/TzZ_ZuSB5KI\/AAAAAAAAA98\/tFZgfxAABVM\/s400\/DSCN1117.JPG\" alt=\"The Old Bedford River\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Old Bedford River<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>From the river the walk was as straight as an arrow north until I hit Downham Market. \u00a0It wasn&#8217;t always the most interesting of walks. \u00a0The highlight was spending some time at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wwt.org.uk\/visit-us\/welney\/\">Welney Bird Reserve<\/a> where I found a dry bench to sit on and enjoy a cup of tea and chocolate.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 576px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" \" title=\"Welney\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-BAmPDds0bj8\/TzZ_Oo-WX2I\/AAAAAAAAA9w\/nqDuouL4fgk\/s640\/DSCN1121.JPG\" alt=\"Welney\" width=\"576\" height=\"432\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Welney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Welney is a wonderful place to visit, especially the night time feeding of the\u00a0hundreds\u00a0of migratory geese from Siberia and Iceland.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 576px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"  \" title=\"Welney\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/-2P-R4wAInCk\/TzZ_Ub9WjbI\/AAAAAAAAA94\/TnsddwcYAYA\/s800\/DSCN1119.JPG\" alt=\"Welney\" width=\"576\" height=\"432\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Welney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I finally arrived at Downham Market just as it was getting dark. \u00a0My train was leaving almost\u00a0immediately\u00a0so no time for a pint. \u00a0I made up for that by having a swifty in the Prince Albert in Ely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I walked this, the 7th stage of my\u00a0Grand Norfolk Hike, on Sunday 5th Feburary 2012. You can see a map&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,12],"tags":[36,35,32,31,43,50],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220"}],"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=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5251,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/5251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}