SATURDAY 11 February 2006 - Ride to Heathers Cafe, Chichester Garden Centre
In conjunction with WSCC's Walks and Rides programe, a short easy paced ride was arranged for today, commencing from Bognor Library.

Six of us set out in fine, but cold, weather, the temperature hovering around 4 to 5 degrees under a sky that threatened much but kept us dry throughout the day.

Our route was as prescribed by the Walks and Runs book entry and took us around the back streets of Bognor, via the Arena, then along the Bognor-Chichester Cycle Track into Colworth, where we stopped to inspect the course of the old Arundel-Portsmouth canal. Proceeding via Woodhorn, Oving and Drayton, we had done about 8 miles by the time we reached our tea stop at Heathers Cafe.

Our return route was via Merston village, where the ducks were out in force, and Merston Lane also allowed us a glimpse of one of only 3 still surviving bridges across the Portsmouth-Arundel Canal, abandoned as long ago as 1856.
Proceeding across Park Farm and Parigo, where the gate seems to now be more often shut than open, we returned to Bognor Regis via Aldwick Green and the seafront, to end the rouute on a mileage just a couple of tenths short of 16 miles.


Graham