Bluebells - and Potatoes

Unable to stand the excitement of two days at the Canal Festival we spent much of last weekend walking and cycling from Norbury Junction.

One of our favourite shorter walks heads off across the fields straight from the mooring towards Norbury Manor.

The quality of the first part of the walk depends on the crop that the farmer has chosen to plant and this varies each year as crops are rotated.

This year it's potatoes - which could make for a difficult walk, but this particular farmer sticks by the rules and has reinstated the path, making for an easy - if somewhat boring - first part of the walk.

After this unpromising start the walk gets more rewarding as it passes through a beech woodland. The trees have been thinned recently and the smaller canopy has let more light in to the woodland floor resulting in a wonderful covering of bluebells.

The track emerges from the woodland at a famous landmark on the Shropshire Union Canal - Bridge 39, or "High Bridge" as it is better known, from where its a short walk back along the towpath to the Junction.

(c) RichTea. Reproduced under Creative Commons Licence

It's a short walk, but almost entirely off-road and a very pleasant excursion. One of the many reasons in fact why we like keeping Starcross at Norbury.