Possible diversions to the route in this Sunday’s Coventry Way Challenge
As I am sure you will all know, we have not been short of rain these last few weeks. Unfortunately, it has caused one or two problems with Sunday’s route. We have inspected the usual “suspects” and, in a couple of places, the River Avon is taking up a lot more room than usual. There are going to be the inevitable muddy, soggy, wet areas along the route which will be there regardless of what the weather throws at us in the next few days,but two places were, at the time of checking, not viable for walking/running. Hopefully by Sunday they will be much improved, but we are not holding our breath. So below are a couple of diversions to miss out these two bad areas. They will be checked out again on Saturday afternoon and you will be advised at registration on Sunday if you need to use them or not.
Please, if possible, print them off and bring with you on Sunday. Use your Green Book to make sense of the directions below. Maps of the diversions are available on the website.
Map 5. The River Avon is flooded approaching the two footbridges, Direction 8.
To avoid this: at the end of Direction 6, DO NOT GO THRO’ THE TWO KISSING GATES. Instead, turnright at the first gate & continue down the field, woods on left, past a dead tree and crossing a vehicle access track to reach a wooden kissing gate on your left. Turn left thro’ the gate and trees to reach the main road. Turn right along the grass verge for 200mts. Then thro’ a wooden kissing gate on the right onto an old tarmac road. Turn left along the road, crossing an old ancient bridge over the River Avon. At end of bridge, veer slightly left and continue along the tarmac, and then thro’ another kissing gate. Continue forward passing an old gate house on the right to reach and go thro’ a gate in the wooden fence ahead. Turn left, and With Care, cross main road into lane opposite. Look for the red sign which says,“The British Horse Society”. (This is the road junction at the bottom of Map 5). Continue up this lane for 500mts where you will reach the start of Direction 10 at Stareton. Then continue forward along lane as in the Green Book.
Map 8 The River Avon is flooding the field and both footbridges mentioned in Direction 3.
To avoid this: at the end of direction 1, instead of climbing the steps, continue along footpath to the large traffic Island. (Bottom left hand corner of map). At this point keep going left, still on footpath, along the road signposted Wolston. There is a safe footpath all the way along this road. After just over half a mile, you will reach a track on your left, with a blue sign saying,“Sewage Treatment Works”. Turn left up this track. (It is marked on your map in the Green Book) until you reach a large concrete apron. You are now at the start of Direction 5 on Map 8. Turn right into enclosed path and continue as in the Green Book
Hopefully there are no other bad areas. There are plenty of wet and muddy ones but nothing too serious. But please watch this space just in case.