Reach, Wednesday. Parked in the village, climbed up onto the Devil’s Dyke and walked south-east between hedges rich with autumnal fruits, hips, haws, sloes and blackberries. Just before the line of the old railway we dropped down to the right from the Dyke and followed a field edge before descending steps onto the track bed in a cutting. Before the bridge a path up led us through woody scrub to Swaffham Road, which we crossed to join the long sweep of Barston Drove heading north-west. Land to the east rose up to the perfect dome of a small hill. Two roe deer sat heads up, ears pricked in a tractor track across blonde stubble. Joining a road we soon turned right along Green Lane (Track) and walked three sides of a rectangle round the overgrown clunch pits back to the village.
Paul, a member of the old U3A walking group, used to tell this joke/riddle. ‘Q. Why can’t you get to Wicken from Woodditton walking along the Devil’s? A. Because it’s beyond Reach.’