Ouse Valley Way

There are several River Ouses and at least two Ouse Valley Ways. The one described here is an 142-mile walk that follows close to the River Great Ouse from its source near the village of Syresham in Northamptonshire, through Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to the point where the river flows into The Wash, in King's Lynn. This river Ouse is described as "Great" to distinguish it from the others, and because it is long! The Great Ouse is long partly because of a number of large meanders - at some stages it feels as if the river doesn't know where it is going. In contrast, nearer the coast the Great Ouse is canalised and accompanied by large drainage channels, so the flow is in purposeful straight lines.

Our incentive to walk the Ouse Valley Way came from the fact that it passes within half a mile of the accommodation that I was renting Monday-Friday in the village of Sherington near Newport Pagnell as well as passing within two miles of our house in Denver, near Downham Market in Norfolk. Much of the route is between the two, so I was "walking home". First of all we had to walk from Syresham to Sherington, whilst past Denver Sluice the route goes on to King's Lynn, on the familiar territory of the Fen Rivers Way. In the spirit of visiting "Jordan residences", we also took a short diversion to the Cambridgeshire village of Willingham, where we lived 30 years ago.

As well as the interest of walking between the two places where I spend most of my time, I've enjoyed exploring countryside that I should have known better than I did. The path passes through Buckingham, across the northern edge of Milton Keynes, then on through or close to Bedford, St Neots, Huntingdon, St Ives, Ely, Littleport and King's Lynn, and lots of villages and pretty countryside in between.

We walked much of the path on days when I was on my way to or from the Milton Keynes/Newport Pagnell area. We started the Ouse Valley Way at the end of November 2014 and finished it in December 2015, having walked the section from home to Kings Lynn out of order in February 2015; this had the added advantage of meaning that on our final day on the path we were, literally, walking home. We walked on the path in all sorts of weather conditions, from winter mud and mist to sunny summer days. The location of the Ouse Valley Way means that we walk short legs on other occasions and we also returned to the path on a summer evening in July 2017 to link from the Bedford South Premier Inn, where we were now spending most Sunday nights, to the Ouse Valley Way, thus adding another "home" into the picture.

Just to further complicate the situation regarding the path's name, part of the Ouse Valley Way is also known as the Ouse Valley Walk, and uses a logo of a swan in flight as well as the Ouse Valley Way's two black swans.

The route is also shared by a number of other named paths; we are aware that we walked on parts of the Palladian Way, the Milton Keynes Boundary Walk, the Iron Trunk Aquaduct Trail, the Grand Union Canal Walk, the Swan's Way, the Midshires Way, the Hanslope Circular Ride, the Three Shires Way, the John Bunyan Trail, the Pathfinder Long Distance Walk, the Greenwich Meridian Trail, the Rothschild Way, the Fen Rivers Way, the Hereward Way, the Black Fen Waterway Trail and the Nar Valley Way. Meanwhile, just in case that isn't enough linkages, a short ferry crossing from King's Lynn brings you to the Peter Scott Walk, which continues up the River Great Ouse to The Wash and then round to the River Nene and so the Nene Way, whilst our own Fen Rivers Way to Norfolk Coast Path link continued north to the east of The Wash.