Downham Market to King's Lynn

After a couple of months in which work took up too much of my time, we were keen to get out for a proper walk today. It was not worth a special visit to Milton Keynes to return to where we had reached on the Ouse Valley Way, so we decided to walk the final section instead. From Ely to King's Lynn, the Ouse Valley Way actually shares its route with the Fen Rivers Way, so today's walk from Downham Market to King's Lynn was the reverse of one we did back in 2007. The weather forecast had not been great, but the sun shone for most of the time and even when the clouds built up towards the end of the walk, we didn't get wet.

We left the car on The Howdale in Downham Market, discovering in passing that The Howdale is named after Miss Howe and Miss Dale, who left six acres of land to the people of the town, for recreation, We walked down past the station and onto the Wisbech Road. We crossed the bridge over the Relief Channel, then turned right onto a path just before Charmed Interiors. This brought us to the eastern bank of the River Great Ouse, which we followed all the way to King's Lynn. The River Great Ouse is tidal in this section; the tide was high as we set off, though the water level dropped slightly as we were walking, and the tide was flowing quite strongly.The Relief Channel, built in the 1960s, was never far away to the east.

We passed Stowbridge, then the Wiggenhalls - W. St Mary Magdelen, W. St Peter and W. St Germans. Each of these has a pretty Church by the river; the Church at Wiggenhall St Peter is ruined and we stopped for lunch at a bench here, in the mistaken belief that we had stopped here for lunch when we walked the route in reverse. We were hungry, even if it was only 11.10 am! After lunch we walked on to Wiggenhall St Germans, which is where we actually stopped for lunch last time. Here there was also an information board about the Fen Rivers Way, which mentioned the Ouse Valley Way, the only mention we saw on the whole walk.

From Wiggenhall St Germans, the river loops round and heads towards Kings Lynn Power Station and the huge Palm Paper plant. The weather had turned quite threatening and it was cold, but as we crossed over the northern end of the Relief Channel, on the 'Tail Sluice' (with a rather ominous repeated message telling us that this was an automated device and that we should stay on the path for our own safety), the sun came out again and there were atmospheric views back down the Relief Channel. The Palm Paper plant has been built since we last walked this way; we drive past it quite regularly on the A47, but had thought it to on the other side of the river i.e. slightly further west. It was interesting to see the massive plant at close quarters.

We walked underneath the A47 and headed past South Lynn to the King's Lynn waterfront. Here there were signs warning motorists to move their cars by 4pm because of the risk of tidal flooding this evening. Thankfully it was only 1pm! We walked along to Purfleet Quay, where a new art installation "Archilense" seemed to make a fitting end to the Ouse Valley Way. We walked past the statue of Captain George Vancouver (King's Lynn's most famous son) and the Custom House and headed towards the town centre. The Mart (fair) was in town, as every February half-term. We had a cup of tea at Debenhams and stopped to buy a newspaper, then (after a bit of a fight trying to buy tickets from a machine using our "Two together" railcard), caught the 13.54 train back to Downham Market.