The weekend just past was a windy & blowy one with gusty swirly winds not the easiest for cycling but none the less enjoyable to be out & about, with night shift looming in a few hours & an early morning rise I decided to just go for a little cycle around the Woodhall Dean nature reserve as it's in a glen low down with lots of tree cover I thought this would be a nice little jaunt out of the wind.
Heading west out of the village & head on into the wind, the fields around here are a mixture of lush green fields of grass for livestock feed & winter vegetable crops such as brussels sprouts, potatoes & swedes or at this time of the year they are golden with the cerial crops.
Descending down the Brunt hill to the start of the nature reserve woodland walk, I love it here nice twisting & turning single track with steep declines, rooty sections, steps to negotiate & not forgetting steep hill climbs too !
Hard to imagine about 15-20 years ago that this section of the woods were soft woods for harvesting & once they were chopped down the Woodland Trust re-planted the area with native species which are now really establishing themselves.
The point where the two hill burns of Weatherly & Woodhall meet.
The old Woodhall Dean packhorse bridge...
...& what's left of the old road leading to it.
Great terrain for mountain biking although the ferns seem to be swallowing up the track at places.
After passing through the ancient oak tree woods & over the burn a wee climb up the hill a nice view as a reward waits at the top, a nice spot to stop for a while to observe the wildlife.
Combines are flat out, I spotted 4 on this little cycle. The trails of straw that are left by the combine are very small nowadays down to genetic modification of the stalks of the plants to make them shorter so the are more resilient to winds etc & less waste product.
Some gnarly old tree's.
Around in a loop & almost back to the start of the walk.
Bike on the shoulder time to go off the trail & along an overgrown track to a man made loch used for irrigating the potato fields.
I quite like this form of crop irrigation as at least the land owners are creating a pond which attracts wildlife & does not affect the level of the rivers or burns, but I am against the farmers who just drain the rivers & burns almost dry.
Combine working the fields of Woodhall farm.
Not a field I intend to take any short cuts through as I counted 10 bulls in this field !
& a field on the way home that I did take a short cut through only to find these four bee hives along the hedge line boundary of the field, but with the high winds I thought it would be safe enough to have a wee nosey.
Well that's another one done & now my good camera has been sent for repair, so hopefully I will get it back within the next 2-4 weeks & my quality of pictures can improve ! Got a bigger ride planned for this weekend so watch this space :-) anyway thanks again for looking & come back to visit again soon.
Cheerio for now.
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