The three roads to happiness

Public footpath signs

I’ve always felt that one of the things I’d miss most if I ever left the UK for, say, America, is our network of public footpaths. I’ve spent many a happy weekend afternoon on them, discovering places I’d never seen before.

An example from this afternoon for all you Cambridge residents. Where, within 10 miles of the city centre, can you find white limestone cliffs? You can’t see them from the road.

Quarry

They’re a lot more dramatic than they look here, too.

But as well as drama this afternoon, there was beauty:

a rose in sunlight

And history:

2008-06-08_19-11-49

and cuteness:

2008-06-08_18-27-43

But the cutest moment came near the end of my walk when, hearing lots of cheeping coming from the river, I went closer and saw a couple of swans and three cygnets heading homewards:

2008-06-08_18-49-46

There was quite a current, and the little one were having to work hard to keep up.

But no, wait, I was mistaken. Four cygnets:

2008-06-08_18-53-30

One had obviously found the current a bit too much and had to be given a lift.

They headed off in the evening sun.

2008-06-08_18-53-47

And so did I.

More photos here.

Enjoyed this post? Why not sign up to receive Status-Q in your inbox?

4 Comments

Geoff says the white cliff’s are at barrington cement works ???
looks a fab place we will have to walk out that way sometime 🙂

Yes, well done!

They’re here:
http://tinyurl.com/3ubagu

The path runs through the trees on the north side of the quarry and my photo is looking south-east from about the middle of the north boundary.

Aren’t the google images amazing – all that stored carbon being released!
Great shots of the swans!
I always love the unique footpath signs here in the UK, absolutely no indication of where the footpath might be going too or how long it takes.
Maybe they are a left over from WW2 where we didn’t want any invaders to know which way to go 🙂

You’ve also got the Cherry Hinton Chalk pits. Apparently used as a climbing venue ages ago (no longer though).

http://www.ukclimbing.com/databases/crags/craginfo.html?id=1198

Leave a Reply to ferg Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

To create code blocks or other preformatted text, indent by four spaces:

    This will be displayed in a monospaced font. The first four 
    spaces will be stripped off, but all other whitespace
    will be preserved.
    
    Markdown is turned off in code blocks:
     [This is not a link](http://example.com)

To create not a block, but an inline code span, use backticks:

Here is some inline `code`.

For more help see http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

*

© Copyright Quentin Stafford-Fraser