Iona Heads to Cambridgeshire

Trip 19:

Fields End Water, Doddington, Cambridgeshire.

This is primary a campsite with fishing, with a campsite with all facilities and in the summer it has a shop and Cafe. It is about 1.5 miles from the village of Doddington.

I had set the sat nav up as a car with the dimensions of a motorhome. That appeared to be a mistake because I did not look at the route and we were taken a short cut on narrow and very bumpy fen roads. When I say bumpy , we were doing about 40mph and hit a bumpy patch of road and nearly took off, we slowed and continued. When we got to the campsite Sue went to get a coat out of the wardrobe and every piece of clothing was on the floor, the coat hangers had all jumped off of the clothes rail.

The site is split into sections and separated by hedging so it feels quite small yet there are 50 pitches. We got set up on a huge pitch very close to the shower block. We had had a quick bite to eat for lunch, the weather had brightened up and we went for a walk around the site.

There are two large ponds and they are currently building another with pitches all the way around it, purely geared for the fishermen. We found a burger van type cafe with a veranda that is open at weekends during the winter season. Tomorrow we hope to venture further with a circular walk to village of Doddington.

Back at Iona we got back into reading, and Sue produced some rather good white chocolate covered Oreos which we had with a mug of tea. Tonight we have a stew for tea that Sue prepared before we left.

Day 2:

It had been raining all night but by 10.00am it had stopped although there is surface water everywhere. We decided to take a chance and go for a walk. I got a map of three circular walks from reception and we got ready with boots and coats. We decided to do the longest walk of 4.9 miles.

The first part was around field margins and to be honest the views were not very inspiring. We reached Doddington village.

The village has been decorated with Christmas lights along the main road. There is a Monument to Queen Victoria in the centre of the village near the Methodist Church. We past two Public Houses, although they were both open it was only 11.30am so we declined the chance for a drink. Past the pubs is the main church. We were going to have a look inside but the Church was locked.

A bit further on and we came across a Gold Postbox, this one was for Jonnie Peacock who lives in the village and he won a Gold medal in the 2012 Paralympics.

We carried on along the route which took us through the village and out into the countryside again, we passed a village sign that was given by the local WI.

The path took us out along more field margins until we reached the campsite. It was still dry with the sun trying to show. We had lunch and spent the afternoon reading.

Tonight for supper we had Salt Beef and vegetables.

Day 3:

Fairly dry this morning so we started to get ready for another walk. However when I went to get our boots out of the cupboard I noticed a fair bit of water as I opened the door. While just wiping it up i found that the carpet was damp so a thorough investigation began. The carpet is damp in one corner but I don’t know how the water got there as the door frame appears dry. I am wondering if I had not shut the cupboard door properly when I washed the van. Hopefully that is the answer but I will have a better look when we get back home.

Once I had dried everything and rolled the carpet back we eventually left for our walk. Today we started in reverse order and took a detour across Pocket Park and missed out the village centre altogether. The new route took us a slightly different way before we joined the path we walked yesterday. We were overtaken on the walk by a woman and her terrier. Sue tried to stroke it and it went for her, luckily she got her hand out of the way in time. We continued the walk and finally arrived back at the campsite with 10,000 steps on our fitbits.

I spent half an hour looking at the rear cupboard doors to see if I could find out where the water came in. I failed and retreated into Iona for lunch. After lunch it started to rain and I went to check the cupboard for water ingress. It was dry but as I was looking inside it became apparent that the rain water was coming off the roof and down the van side into the open hatch. Problem solved.

The afternoon was spent reading and relaxing.

Trip 19: 124.8 miles, 25.1 mpg, 34mph, 3hr 36m