A fruitful return

When our team visited Orwell Country Park to check part of the Stour and Orwell walk a few weeks ago a number of problems were found found with the waymark signs. The problems were mainly due to coastal erosion which has resulted in part of the path along the Orwell being realigned further away from the shore. These had been reported to Neil at the AONB team who asked us to follow-up and replace missing signs. Lizzy and Andrew signed up for this mission and Neil dropped-off a batch of waymark discs and screws.

As we arrived, it was hailing, but spirits remained high whilst Andrew explained the task and so we set-off. We jogged the outbound leg through Bridge Wood, with bluebells in full bloom, whilst checking that signs were still in-place and easy to follow, until we reached the river. Once close to the river we started replacing missing signs, adding them to the realigned section and recording where we'd placed them so that future checks are based on up-to-date information.

It was good to see that the area around the steps up to the Orwell Bridge that were litter-picked on Good Friday were much cleaner this time around and so we paused and attacked the "Stairway to Heaven" - Lizzy set the GoodGym Community Mission benchmark: 38 seconds. In doing so she also claimed the best female this year leaderboard top-spot for the Strava segment! At the top we paused and admired the view before returning and turning our attention to litterpicking whilst jogging back. Lizzy claimed fifty points for finding an unattached pair of socks!

The route from the river back to the car park is a continuous incline. Whilst spirits were high as we made our way back through the bluebells, Andrew was definitely struggling having earlier ran the Felixstowe parkrun and admitted he'd be walking if he was alone; Lizzy said she would be too, but we continued running to the top - a great example of how exercising together can spur you on to keep going! When back at base, they celebrated earning their Community Capes^ with lemon and sultana Danish pastries :-)

Despite it being a bank holiday we still have a Group Run on Monday evening. The task will be helping out at a soup kitchen. Full details are here.

^ The eagle-eyed reader might think: "Surely Andrew already had his". However, he'd forgotten to register himself for the previous Community Mission and so it hadn't been counted!