Pootler

Nene Valley Path E of Rushden GPX File to Download      Bedford to Oundle Route This is a 73 mile circular route starting from Bedford Station. I chose to do it slowly, over two short days.  Heading out of Bedford, the fields are not far away and after you get to Rushden Green you are in rolling green countryside. The lunch stop was a great café at Higham Ferrers on the west edge of Rushden, which felt more like a village than a suburb. From there the Nene Valley Way is a gravel track through the flooded gravel pit lakes to Thrapston which you bypass on the way to Oundle. I gather that Oundle has a reputation as being bourgeois to its bootstraps with a posh school at its heart,  this one with particularly hideous uniforms for the poor girls.    Lovely honey coloured stone throughout. Nearby, the Talbot Hotel is a carefully converted historic gem, but not ‘budget’. The bar and restaurant are OK but the even older ‘Ship’, a few doors down, has great beer, acceptable food and cheaper acc