During the morning of Wednesday 3 May, we were delighted to lead a group of ‘Nordic Walkers’ through Lower Pertwood Farm.
Rachel Carter from Hindon has a group of enthusiastic walkers which she has trained using a ‘Nordic walking’ technique which strengthens all parts of one’s body during a walk.
For more about this, visit her website www.forfitnesssake.fit
Rachel’s group walk every Wednesday and most walks are carried out within a 10-mile radius of Hindon. Some of the walks include footpaths through Fonthill, Shearwater, Stourhead, and Compton Abbaf. They had never walked Lower Pertwood Farm before so it was a first for all of them.
Be that as it may, the walk took just over two hours and covered about 4 ½ miles through beautiful sections of Lower Pertwood Farm. Places and things of interest which were pointed out were Big Down which shows where ‘small holdings’ were situated and used as terraced farming plots during the ‘bronze age’, the old Roman Road traversing the base of Big Down, various beehives, historic ponds, various barns containing owl boxes where over 100 owls have been bred, the ‘long barrow’ burial site dating back to the neolithic period (+- 7,000 years ago), Pewitts Gorse (the hub of where bird migration, ringing and recording takes place), a ‘stone circle’ built by resident hippies in 1996, the ‘butterfly bank’ being rehabilitated to enhance a breeding area and lastly the beautiful views from Pertwood’s ancient chalk downlands of the countryside in general.
The photograph shows the happy group at a spot at the top of Hill Down. This is where the girls did their stretching exercises prior to embarking on the last stretch of their walk.
David Scales, the security manager for Lower Pertwood had the pleasure of escorting the Nordic Walking group.
