Monday 16 November 2015

A Walk along the Test Way from Mottisfont

Monday 16th November 2015

I really should have been Christmas shopping today but let's say due to a lack of ideas and motivation it didn't happen.  However, we did have a productive morning, clearing out some of the junk in our garage and taking to the local recycling centre, then as we were out that way we had a walk along the Test Way from a car park at Mottisfont.  The footpath follows the route of the old railway line (the Sprat and Winkle line) between Romsey and Andover alongside the River Test.  Today's aim was to look for two new (ish) geocaches, one of which had a duck travel bug in it that has travelled over 21,000 miles - we hope to take it to our Christmas family duck race in a few weeks before we move it on to another geocache.    This well travelled duck started it's travels in Scotland and has been to Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Mauritius, Malta and to various places in the UK. The second geocache was a tricky little number but luckily I was with just the man to solve the problem and get in to the cache! (I would probably still be there now trying to get into it!!)

As we looked for the first cache, we could hear a buzzard overhead, we then heard a few more, in fact there were five circling high up overhead making the mewing call that is so distinctive to buzzards.  I took a few photos but had to zoom in beyond the point of no return so they are not great but you get the idea!

Well, at least the twigs are in focus!  First there was one......

...... then there were two........

......... three..........

......four...... far in the distance.  Then there were five but I couldn't fit them all in!!

A lovely cottage with equally lovely neighbours in front of their gate.

A short detour took us onto the Monarch's Way over the River Test.

It was very quiet along the Test Way this morning, we only passed a couple of ladies on bikes and that was it.  The path itself was muddy in places and covered in leaves but pleasant enough.  There were birds everywhere, some singing at the top of their little voices.  We saw lots of robins, a few blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, pheasants, a thrush, a jay and a dunnock. We had a short 3 mile walk and a productive morning.                                                                                                  

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