Denver Sluice to Downham Market, as part of circuit from home

Last weekend we walked from Downham Market to King's Lynn, the final section of the Ouse Valley Way. I didn't want to walk the whole route out of sequence, but I was happy to walk the short section from Denver to Downham Market, so that our final section on the Ouse Valley Way, at some stage in the future, will end at Denver Sluice, a short walk down Sluice Road to our house in Denver. Today's walk was a circuit from home and the modest walk fitted well into a weekend when I had plenty of work to do and needed to leave home at lunchtime on Sunday, for a trip to Carlisle via Milton Keynes.

We walked this section in reverse, as part of the Fen Rivers Way, on a snowy day in February 2009. There was no snow today; the weather forecast was for a rather cloudy day, with some rain, but it was actually rather more pleasant than I'd expected and the few spots of rain as we walked home from Downham Market didn't really come to anything. It was however rather windy; I wished I'd worn a hat, both to keep my ears warm and to keep my hair in order.

Richard went shopping and we had an early coffee and left home around 10.30am. We walked down to Denver Sluice, past the Windmill, sadly a shadow of its former self now that the sails have been removed again. We stopped at the Impounding Sluice at the end of Cut-off Channel, which carries water from Denver to Essex (passing Kirtling Brook, which we walked past on the Stour Valley Path in April 2012), then we crossed the A.G. Wright Sluice and turned right alongside the River Great Ouse. The Ouse Valley Way is coincident with the Fen Rivers Way here, so we were surprised and pleased to see a sign bearing the Ouse Valley Way's logo of two black swans.

The section of our walk actually on the Ouse Valley Way was rather short and Heygate's Mill, close to the end point, was in sight for the whole walk; there were also views across the fen to Denver Windmill and, behind us, back to the Sluices. At Salters Lode we passed two rather nondescript openings in the opposite bank, one with a narrow channel through the silt to a lock; these are the links to the Old Bedford River and Well Creek, and boats definitely do come this way, sometimes! We crossed the Downham Market to Wisbech road and continued beside the river for a short distance before leaving the route where we joined it last weekend, close to Charmed Interiors [now closed]. We walked past the Station, through Downham Market, then home by way of Sandy Lane and a footpath back to Sluice Road.

Following leg