Text supplied by organiser Glen, pics by Christina.
The western start of the Angles Way long-distance footpath at Knettishall Heath Nature Reserve was the meeting point for 13 of us for a wander that turned out to be around the 13-miles mark. We headed off eastwards along unspoilt tracks, through rural solitude and pleasing scenery, past Riddlesworth Hall School, through the hamlet of Gasthorpe and skirted by Hopton Fen before passing through Hopton village en route to Thelnetham, going close to the attractive windmill there.
There was no knight on a white charger at the White Horse pub at Thelnetham for the planned drink stop, but more disappointingly there was no publican or bar staff either as the dismayed IOG throng faced the unthinkable of a usually open pub amazingly being closed, at peak Sunday lunchtime too! Other passers-by would have witnessed the spectacle of all the tables outside the pub being occupied by apparently contented customers who were in fact merely IOGers having their packed lunches there in protest! Fortunately, the possibility of a minor group mutiny was averted by a subsequent visit to The Vine at Hopton on the way back.
Two of our throng succumbed to the seemingly hypnotic beckoning of uncollected onions lying on a field (most of those reading this who weren’t on the walk can probably guess correctly who they were!), but almost all of us were more than happy to yield to the lure of a perfectly positioned ice cream van on our return to the car park start point.
A good day enjoyed by all, excellent walking conditions, and the NW Suffolk corner probably gained a few more enthusiasts as a consequence.