Harvest Hobble 26m 2019

This was a new event for us, neither of us had been to this area of the Lincolnshire Wolds before. The event started at Ludford, near Market Rasen and headed north west and then was a rectangular route. There was a strong breeze from the south west that blew us along in the first half, but it was hard going into the wind when Melanie and I didn't have the protection of hedges which sometimes helped.

The event HQ was the village hall and this being an LDWA event, it was cheap. Free tea or coffee at the start. The first checkpoint (3 miles) had biscuits, but after that there was sandwiches, cheese and sausage rolls. At the end there was tomato soup roll followed by rice pudding with peaches. A good day for eating !

We started off and headed for a long section of the Viking Way. Initially there was a few flat field edges, but we did come across some sunflowers.

The route then started to undulate

Before a descent to the first checkpoint (3 miles)

Then it was up and on to the edge of the wolds with lovely views to the west

Still more undulations

and into an area where there were deer

We passed many lovely churches, this one was in Normanby-le-Wold

We made a slight error when we came off the Viking Way, the path forked and we took the left one instead of the right one. We had the route on our Garmins and the paths were very close so it was hard to work out the correct way. Luckily, runners behind us let us know we were wrong so we were able to quickly backtrack.

We then entered some woods (a long way from anywhere) close to some old workings (according to the map). We came across three of these, which may apparently be airshafts.

More typical wolds countryside, lots of the route reminded us of the Golden Fleece Circuit route on the other side of the Humber

Late on the route was telling us to go straight across a field of potatoes. Not easy and we gave up in the end and headed down one of the valleys between the potatoes.

After the last checkpoint at 21 miles, there was a long drag upwards into the wind, which was very hard going and I would say this was the least attractive part of the route.

We were pleased to get back to Ludworth to our soup, roll and sweet - if you have never done an LDWA event, go for it they are fun !