Sometimes it’s hard to keep me away from The Outwoods, but never before have I been on a guided nature walk! I was a bit apprehensive about finding my way from Loughborough up to The Outwoods on my own, as I usually go with family, but I made it!! I actually parked at the car park on Watermead Lane, and walked up the footpath towards the gate into The Outwoods. At this point, there was a map, but it was a map, and I’m not good at reading them, so I trudged along in the pouring rain, heading, I hoped, in the right direction for the car park, which was the meeting point for the walk.
I’d seen details of the walk somewhere on social media, and was intrigued to know what idVerde Ranger, Sam, might be able to show us. As it happened, the ‘us’ turned into just me, as despite four folk having booked to go on the walk, I was the only one who attended. In some ways this was great as it meant Sam and I could look at things that interested either her or me, and we could chat about all sorts of things in general. So, as I suggested, we started from the car park, and walked down a path towards the charcoal burning area.
Along the way we spotted jays, and muntjac deer, as well
as numerous different species of trees. At one point I exclaimed “What a lot of
ferns, or is it bracken?” It had intended to be a rhetorical question, as I had
thought the word ‘fern’ was interchangeable with the word ‘bracken’, but I was
wrong!! What we saw first were bracken, and further along the walk we spotted
some ferns, so now I know the difference!
The Outwoods is full of commemorative things, like plaques and benches, and one of the first plaques we came to honoured VE-Day.
Of course, as it’s called The Outwoods, one expects to see lots of different trees, and we really did spot oh so many different species. These are looked after in several ways: non-native trees are sometimes removed to give native trees, and other things that live in the woods, space to grow and thrive. Trees are often coppiced, having their tops chopped off to encourage better growth.
There was also a small square of metal in the ground at one point, but I really didn't know what it was for, until we came across a post, which had obviously once been part of a tree! It had the letter 'T' engraved on it, and it was anchored by a small square piece of metal like the one we had previously seen. I'm still not sure what it was? Some kind of directional post, perhaps?
Along the way, and often growing on the trees, we also spotted lots of lichen – different types and different colours!
And there were literally dozens of different sorts of mushrooms, of all shapes, sizes, and hues!! Lovely to look at but potentially hazardous, so I wouldn’t advise picking any of these beautiful specimens, as you might select something poisonous, and besides, as The Outwoods is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (a triple SI as Sam would say), it is a criminal offence to pick them.
Having made
our way around the perimeter of the woods, we headed back to the car park.
Although the rain had stopped and it wasn’t particularly cold, my hands were a feeling
a bit chilly, so I admit I did pop into the café in the car park for a nice
warm cuppa! After all, I did have a bit of a trek back to the car ahead of me!!
Anyway, I made it back safe and sound, and was pleased to see some of the fantastic rock formations in the woods, and I had some beautiful views of our
lovely town on the way down.
Thank you to Sam for a very interesting walk!
Ranger Sam will be walking again in the springtime, and I'd highly recommend joining her! In the meantime, if you want to know more about how idVerde look after our natural and open spaces, you can find more details on their website.
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I’ve written extensively about The Outwoods on this blog, so if you want to follow some of my earlier journeys, here are some links:
Here are some of my earlier posts about The Outwoods:
Walking from Loughborough to The Outwoods and Back -
guest post
Walk to Oaks in Charnwood via The Outwoods
New Year walk to The Outwoods 2016
Life in locked down Loughborough
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Posted by
lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for
typos which are all mine!
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