Photos from the Winter Run 2023

Bernard’s Report on today’s run follows :

A surprisingly good turn out, 17 signed on at Dikes supermarket car park. The weather had been pretty grim leading up to Sunday, So much so that I revised my route to avoid two planned river bridge crossings and one ford. The ford was at Fifehead Neville so we crossed the river Diveilish further upstream via a bridge on Zore Lane. The first planned bridge being at Hammon which now has gates to prevent crossing when the river Stour is in flood. We went via Child Oakford to Manston. The second Stour crossing was to be at Trill bridge, a tributary of the river Stour on the road to Stour Row, so we preceded further north to loop round to Stour Row. I know Trill bridge well. When route planning a couple of years ago I came a cropper in flood water there. When I checked the route this year there was significant surface water on the main road to Shaftsbury, hence the red warning on my route sheet. This had dispersed but we found rather a lot of surface by Henstridge Airfield. So, it did not rain until we got back to Dikes but with all the surface water it was a good test for the quality of waterproofing of your ignition system!

As far as I know there were no incidents and no breakdowns. Leading, I met no less than 5 separate either single or groups of horse riders. Whether they had taken cover by the time the main body of rider appeared, I do not know.

Such a pity Dikes coffee shop was not open. They told me it was due to staff shortages, however they did have a coffee machine and cold snacks available and we could sit in the unmanned café. Next year I plan to start at the Udder shop at East Stour.

Bernard Jones