Wollaston - Strixton - (Grendon)Lower End - Gt Doddington - Wollaston

About 8.5 miles. With Barry and Gordon . Weather misty, but some sun, and a few drops of rain. Fields muddy, but not too muddy.
Garmin ran out of juice, so link shows general area and start of walk. By zooming out, you may be able to work it out!  (WHEN I've described it a bit, that is!)

In need of David Hockney's step-ladder to snap the blue plaque!  This is on the house next to the start of the footpath in Wollaston. The path leads between fences, past fields of llamas (alpacas?) and a pony or two, before arriving at open fields.  Before long the path reaches the A509, which we crossed, then walked along a short distance to the right, to take the footpath, rather than the one marked opposite the crossing.

This tree is dead apart from the ivy. It is a marker of the direction of the path after we crossed the A509, heading towards Strixton.

Too cute to be real?

Too real to be cute?

At Strixton we turned left and walked along the road, for a few hundred yards.  Then we turned off to the left, making our way south-east,  slightly uphill then down into Lower End. 

We turned right and walked along Blackmile Lane to Main Road. On the other side of this we turned north-east, then north-west, making towards a double row of electricity pylons. The path continued in the same direction, leaving the pylons behind until we reached a small road, crossing a field with a few horses, some of which thought we might be a good bet for a snack when we paused to shelter under a tree from the few drops of rain.

We followed a path near one of the old gravel pits, crossing the Nene just before the sewage works. 

The path to Great Doddington isn't clearly marked, and we came up to the left of a farm building instead of to the right. 

Turn right along the main village street, ignore the first Nene Way signpost, and carry on until you are almost out of the village.  The path leads down hill, through a gap in the hedge and down to Doddington Mill.  

We crossed the Nene again - lots of fish in the part near the mill. Then we followed the route we took last week, in reverse as far as the Road between Wollaston and Doddington.  Instead of turning left along this road, we turned right and then left on to the road to Grendon.  After a few hundred yards we took a footpath to the left, across a couple of fields, and the A509, and another short section of footpath before reaching the road leading up into the village. 

Pigs on the roof?

A short detour to see the llamas, which were now outside, then we returned to the car.