28 March 2019: Milling Around at Woodbridge

Thirteen Windmillers set off from The Fox Inn at Newbourne for a forty-odd mile outing to the Suffolk coast.

Or at least, that was the plan.

Maurice – followed by Ric, Graham, Tom, Deborah, Keith, Martin, Andrew, Geoff, Lawrence, Ken, Simon and Brian – led the way southwards through Felixstowe and out to the tip of the peninsula, from where we would catch the ferry across the Deben to Bawdsey. Alas, the jetty was strangely quiet and, looking our way, the patrons of the nearby cafe were shaking their heads sadly. Maurice went along the jetty to read the notice and came back looking decidedly sheepish; the ferry was closed until April 1st.

Clearly, we had options:

1. Hanging around for four days until the ferry opened.
2. Swimming across, it couldn’t be more than 100 yards.
3. Or just milling around for 10 minutes while Maurice poured over the OS map.

Maurice soon came up with fallback plan. Back on the bikes, we followed him inland on a gravel track along the Deben to Falkenham and thence back through Newbourne to The Fox where we pulled in for coffee and some further route mapping.

With lunchtime little over an hour away, a short hop to Woodbridge and back seemed our best bet and so, draining our cups, we headed north to visit the Woodbridge Tide Mill.

Pausing for photographs, we then headed back to Newbourne. Somehow on the return leg we managed to lose half the peloton – but all were eventually reunited at The Fox where we enjoyed an al fresco lunch in glorious sunshine.

Thanks, as ever, to Maurice and Andrew organising the day.

Brian