Saturday 31st December 2022
After some poor weather over Christmas that prevented me from doing much walking, I wanted to get away for the New Year weekend and rather than travel too far I picked somewhere close to home: Warwickshire, so to start I drove down the M69 motorway and parked at the Newbold Comyn Country Park to the east of Royal Leamington Spa. The car park seemed to be full but I managed to find a spot and as I walked past the sports facilities I was passed by many people who had just been for a run around the park and were seemingly the reason why there had been so many cars in the car park. I didn’t have a definite route plan for this walk and with the weather forecast to worsen I was reluctant to go far. After passing all the people doing the Leamington parkrun I branched off into woodland and onto muddy paths through the Leam Valley Nature Reserve, though the overcast weather and lack of vegetation wasn’t inspiring me to do much walking. I had even contemplated not walking anywhere this day as I really didn’t feel like it, but I did start walking through an area that I’d never done any walking in before, so despite the weather I kept going and with no clear idea where I was going. Eventually I came to a hide beside some ponds next to the river, but this was clearly a dead-end and I was nowhere near a right-of-way so I doubled back along wider paths beside the woodland edge until eventually I came to a public footpath that took me out of the park and across the River Leam.
I was now following the route of a walk that I had found on the walkingbritain.co.uk website, which took me through Offchurch Bury Park and the rain that was briefly falling at this point into the village of Offchurch. The rain stopped before I reached the village and after crossing a couple of muddy fields I was fed up with walking through mud, so it was a relief to come across the firm surface of an old railway line that is now known as the Offchurch Greenway. This was a delightful walk until I reached an impressive viaduct over the Grand Union Canal, which the Greenway doesn’t continue over so I dropped down onto the towpath beside the canal and followed that past the Leam Valley Nature Reserve with the river down a steep bank to my right. After passing the ponds that I had seen earlier and the rest of the reserve, I soon entered the town of Royal Leamington Spa left and abandoned the route from walkingbritain.co.uk just as it started to rain again. While searching for a toilet, I headed into the town centre and eventually found myself at the Royal Pump Rooms where, after using their facilities, I took a look around the museum to learn about the treatments that used to be taken in this building with the town’s healing waters.
Once the rain had stopped again I returned to the canal and resumed my walk along the towpath. My original plan had been to keep going beside the canal all the way into the neighbouring town of Warwick, but with heavy rain forecast I decided it would be best to cut the walk short, so immediately after crossing the railway line I took a path that heads back into Leamington beside the River Leam. After walking through Victoria Park I crossed the river into Pump Room Gardens, briefly stopping at the Pump Rooms again, before continuing the riverside walk through Jephson Gardens where a twin set of fountains was a lovely centrepiece to the park. I was not enthused by this walk and really just wanted something relaxing and Leamington Spa was certainly providing me with that as I slowly passed through the park, beside the river, into woodland on muddy paths that led me past Newbold Comyn Leisure Centre and eventually brought me back to my car just as it started to rain. With the poor weather and my lack of enthusiasm, this was never going to be a great walk, especially as it was cut short but it was good to be outside and to have a chance to explore a place that I had never visited before and I was not too bothered to finish the walk early.
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