Lodes Way–again!

Tuesday, 14^th June: I am afraid that it is still impossible to use the Picasa desktop client to reliably load picture onto my Picasaweb storage for use in this blog, so it has gone picture-lite. Which for this particular Post means 7 pictures, although one was already stored away ready for use.  I am amazed that within the space of a few weeks Google have had significant problems with Blogspot and Picasaweb with days of interruption. In the case of Picasaweb I reckon that it first caused me problems on the 8^th of June and at the time of writing this it is June 17^th.

So this was the ride, along Lodes Way but using a route that I only recently “discovered”. The nice thing about it is that a lot of it is along quiet roads and tracks and so ideal when I want a ride of a reasonable distance, but not to much bumping.

I have re-used the map I created the last time, the comments still work although I could have added new ones, but that would have required another picture upload.  Here is the BikeRouteToaster link. It is around 55Km / 34 miles long and rather nice even if I say so myself.

For a change I haven’t taken pictures of the flax fields, mainly because they weren’t really much in flower. I think that the flax flowers seem to avoid bright sunlight, although a couple of web pages seem to suggest it is a full-sun plant.  Talking about flowers here are some poppy field pictures in the Daily Mail.

Whilst on the subject of pictures there were also some wonderful pictures in the Daily Mail taken from the ISS (International Space Station) of the UK at night. Whilst I might find the way in which the DM structures its news items I do like the fact they are publish some good pictures and are not hiding behind a paywall. What the pictures did show me was how much energy was pouring out and how densely populated the place is.

In my mind there is no doubt that man has a huge impact on the Planet Earth and that the evidence clearly points to the effects. However apparently the Sun’s cycles also impact the Earth and early data suggests that the sun might be entering a quiet period.  I still think we need to get a grip on pollution and energy consumption though even if that early data does prove right.

Now what was one of the causes of pollution as yes CFCs which were widely used as refrigerants and were phased out via the Montreal Protocol – put another way our fridges and freezers were using a very potent greenhouse gas.  So obviously all old fridges and freezers need to be dumped as quickly as possible – that’s right just dump them along the byways – at least that is what this tosser fly-tipper thought. This is Lower Fen Droveway by the way.

This is where there is a three-way byway junction just near the Drove Way, not far from Allicky Farm and Stow cum Quy Fen. The trees form quite an archway over the entrance to one field. This oilseed rape must have been planted later in the season compared with most fields around here.

Just to the left of the Archway is the track down to Stow cum Quy Fen which is an SSSI. As I stopped to take a picture an old boy came along in his car. He used to farm here for Colonel X (sorry I forgot the name) and I have talked with him before. I certainly like this bit of the countryside, so I would imagine it is in his bones.

The Flax flowers were hiding again, so no pictures on the way through, from the looks of things they seem to flower more when it is gloomy than when there is strong sunlight.

I did stop along Lodes Way to take a picture of Swaffham Bulbeck Lode from the bridge – it all looked serene.

After crossing Reach lode and reaching Burwell Lode I saw this small 4x4 in the field. depending upon which map I look at this is either Adventurer’s Fen (1898 – 1901) or Burwell Fen (1805 – 1836) so perhaps the NT are right to call it Burwell Fen?  Whatever, it was a strange place to see the 4x4. It almost looked as if it might have been abandoned – except there was no damage and in any case if it had been stolen it would have probably been burnt out.  So who knows.  (This picture is taken from the footbridge over Burwell Lode looking back along the new bit of Lodes Way.)

as it happens there was another car at the top of Harrison’s Drove – so perhaps there is some sort of research or survey activity taking place.

Or maybe the driver was led astray by his/her GPS, I am more convinced that we seem to want a nanny state that tells us what to do and means we don’t have to think for ourselves. To think they let people like that drive their cars amongst us cyclists.

This was really a ride ride rather than  a picture-taking ride. Basically I was playing hooky and had stuff to do. I had also had some problems with my computer crashing – which they do from time to time. The problem is that I have a 2Tb RAID disk (currently 41% full), which is actually 2 x 2Tb disks and when the system crashes it kindly performs a verification which can take for ever. While that verification is running the computer runs like treacle. So I was hoping that when I got back it would have made good progress and be a little more responsive again.

As I passed through Reach I did notice that the aliens had been and left their cocoons behind.  I presume that some of the cocoons are dotted around the field for a reason. Perhaps they “mature” differently to those stacked up behind. Whilst trying to find any information about this I did come upon the term haylage (as opposed to silage). It would seem to be cut and well-wrapped at a specific and quite high moisture level to make it more suitable for horses.

That doesn’t explain why some are kept separate though.