The Wessex Grand Tour

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The Wessex Tour – sort of! Day Four

Cycling the Ham Wall levels

We cycle down to the Ham nature reserve by taking the lane left just after the Vauxhall dealer garage in Walton. The starlings are massing but haven’t yet started their ‘famed’ murmuration’s. Drainage ditches are full, many covered with green duckweed. There are big puddles in the ploughed fields. It is an incongruous sight seeing herons standing motionless in the middle of vast puddles in the centre of huge fields. At Abbots Sharpham estate, the huge herd of deer are sheltering from the wind below the oak trees.

Past the reed beds near Avalon Farm, down past Manor farm and on the bend at Sharpham crossing we pick up the cycle track along the old disused railway line.

We are surrounded by huge rectangular lakes. Most, but not all, have extensive reed beds. Grown as a crop for basket weaving, they provide a great refuge for nature. In fact, Ham Wall is a national nature reserve and well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Once an area of extensive peat extraction, these pits have been reclaimed by nature. The cycle track gives several stopping points with information boards and seating. There is even a little trailer café selling hot drinks (and Gin’s) part way along.

 We just miss the otters and Kingfishers but we see plenty of herons, buntings, wagtails and various other small birds. The herons are close by on several occasions. They are big, magnificent looking birds.

Ham Wall is a wetland teeming with wildlife. We cycle slowly keeping an eye out for water voles and kingfishers, but alas, we have no luck today. The views across the marshes to Glastonbury Tor are impressive though.

We deviate off the main cycle path down one of the marked trails but it soon turns muddy and slippery and so we retreat back to a convenient bench in front of one of the smaller lakes and we stop for lunch and to admire the views through the reeds.

You can download a useful trail guide here: https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/downloads/documents/reserves/rspb-ham-wall-trail-guide-updated.pdf

This reserve was designed to provide the best habitat possible for wetland species, particularly bitterns and is managed to keep the wetland habitats in the best possible condition for the wildlife that lives there. We noticed that some reedbeds had been cut and the vegetation removed.  It seems it is done on a rotational basis.  I know that water levels are managed across the reserve to provide these ideal conditions for wildlife. A 265-hectare site at the heart of the Avalon Marshes, the area was previously owned and worked by the peat industry. Ham Wall was born in 1994 when the land was passed to the RSPB whose objective was to re-create vital reedbeds and help the struggling bittern population in the UK. The land has been sculpted by machines, RSPB volunteers and staff who also grew reed from seed. Planting thousands of young reeds by hand must have been extremely hard, challenging but ultimately rewarding work. Bitterns first bred at the site in 2008.

As we head towards the RSPB centre, we pass a working peat cutting and bagging unit. There are huge lorries, lots of piles of bags of peat and then surprising to me several large heaps of different colour and different graded peat. Who knew you could get different peat types from the same area?

At the RSPB centre car park we do a quick double take. There is a Broadway EB parked up and it is identical to Bryony.  Very disconcerting!

We pick up the lanes once more and head back south up the hill to Shapwick where we pick up National Cycle Route 3 to Ashcott. From there we skirt eastwards through the lanes to West Park Farm and then up the road to cross the A39 just before the campsite. The views across the levels over to the Tor are very attractive. E bikes make the gentle hills easy.

Back at the campsite, we spend the remainder of the afternoon reading the Sunday Papers. The field is beginning to resemble a swamp in places!

The evening is spent with family catching up on family news over a Chinese takeaway.

To end the day, I slip out for a bit of stargazing. 2300 – 0130. Its freezing, wet underfoot and windy but its good to see Orion back on the horizon. I manage to get around 40 minutes worth of Raw images for later processing.

Total route distance cycled: 15 miles