Salcey Forest to Blisworth Tunnel (North Entrance)

It was now just over a fortnight since I stopped being Head of the Open University's School of Physical Sciences and I'd been looking forward to having more time for walking. Other commitments, including two sets of very welcome visitors, one of whom we had been out walking with in Norfolk, meant that we'd not had much time in Milton Keynes, though Richard had been at the flat for36 hours at the end of last week to oversee the work of the plumber who sorted out our water supply problems. This weekend was the opportunity for me to experience for myself the joys of hot water, a flushing toilet, and decent water pressure in the flat! It was also an opportunity to get back to the Midshires Way.

It hadn't looked like a particularly exciting leg, but it was surprisingly pleasant, on a mostly overcast day with occasional light drizzle, but this wasn't a problem and the sun came out from time to time. However, it didn't have the most prepossessing of starts. We had a straightforward drive to the car park at SP730528, above the northern entrance to the Blisworth tunnel on the Grand Union Canal. We were last here on a snowy day in March 2018. The drive to the horse-box car park at Salcey Forest ( SP811508) was also straightforward, but now the fun and games began. Last time we were here, we'd discovered it would cost £6 to park. Today we'd accepted that, grudgingly, but didn't have £6 in cash...and we couldn't use a credit card because there was no mobile phone signal. So we ended up paying £2 in cash for a shorter period of time, then topping up by phone when we got a signal (£6 plus 26p service charge). That's a total of £8.26 plus a lot of hassle!

We'd decided not to follow the route of the Midshires Way around Salcey Forest because it really is a rather long way round, on roads for much of the time. Instead, we took the track immediately opposite the car park, which soon joined with the Northamptonshire Round, and eventually with the Midshires Way. At the junction, we encountered first a marshal with a dog and then assorted runners on a park run, first heading towards us and then heading off onto the route of the Midshires Way that we hadn't followed. It was here that we got a mobile signal so Richard sorted out payment for parking. At least we could now spend the rest of the day on the walk, had we so wished.

We left the forest and headed towards Piddington. After crossing a disused railway and passing a rather unlikely "low flying aircraft" sign we reached Church Farm. and turned left. As the guidebook says, it's a curious name, as Piddington Church is still some distance away. However, the low flying aircraft sign was perhaps explained by an old light aircraft behind a barn. There was also a modern combine harvester and a farmer just heading to a tractor. The route from here to Quinton Green as shown on our paper OS Explorer Sheet 207 (copyright 2012, though mostly 1999 mapping) was not quite as shown on the up-to-date mapping on the OS Maps app, and neither was the same as the reality shown on the ground. However the route finding wasn't really a problem, and we crossed typical attractive rolling Northamptonshire countryside, getting closer to the M1 and a wind farm on the other side. It all felt quite isolated but then a runner appeared from no-where.

The hamlet of Quinton Green is little more than a single farm, but it's an attractive place. We crossed the road just to the south and took a path that led over the M1. We used a concrete ledge at one side of the bridge as a place for me to sit while sorting out my feet; the insole of my summer walking boots persists in slipping, and unfortunately I was developing a blister - or perhaps the cause was just my sweaty feet. As we descended from the bridge, two cyclists came past. We took a path that followed around the edge of the wind farm and so, eventually, the road to Roade.

Roade is a large village which we had driven through on our drive between Blisworth and Salcey Forest earlier this morning. We approached the village on the road by which we had left it in the car, and left it on the road by which we had approached the village this morning. However, the route in between was different, with the driving route avoiding the centre whilst the walking route went straight through. The route of the Midshires Way passed two attractive greens, complete with ancient buildings, including thatch, and we were left with a much more favourable impression than we had had from the drive. We walked briefly along the A508 before taking a road on the other side and we crossed the main railway line on a bridge. also passed a pub which seemed to be preparing for a British Legion event of some sort, but round the corner, a coach from County Durham was disgorging what were obviously football fans and they were heading into the same pub.

We took a track past Hyde Farm and so away from Roade, climbing slightly through attractive Northamptonshire countryside. In the next little section we passed several walkers and when we had stopped to enjoy an early picnic lunch, a dog walker stopped to talk and it turned out that this was her turning around point, because she often saw wildlife in the field behind us. The weather was somewhat threatening and the dog walker, who I assume had come from Roade, had no waterproofs with her – and had left her washing out.

We reached Stoke Road, which at this point just about follows the route of the Grand Union Canal, above the Blisworth Tunnel. The route of the Grand Union Canal Walk on the map goes along the road. However, when we walked the leg of the Grand Union Canal Walk from Stoke Bruene to the northern entrance to Blisworth Tunnel, on 25th February 2018, we had actually taken the route of the Midshires Way, so we now joined a section of walk that we had done before. There was occasional mud, but nothing like as bad as it had been on the previous occasion and it was basically a most enjoyable walk through rolling Northamptonshire countryside, over to the west of the tunnel then diagonally back to emerge close to the well preserved ventilation shaft, close to the northern entrance to the tunnel. We went down to the canal in the hope that we’d see a boat emerging from the tunnel, but although there were other people about, they were all on foot; so far as boats were concerned it was disappointingly quiet. We collected the other car from Salcey Forest and drove back to the flat.