Gillingham Trotters Running Club (Dorset) Wessex Ridgeway.

LEG 2 SHROTON TO OKEFORD HILL

4.8 MILES

KING OF THE MOUNTAINS STUFF. TWO OF THE THREE STICKLER 'PEAKS'. ONE AT THE START AND ONE AT THE END. THERE ARE 2 ROAD SECTIONS BUT MOST OF IT IS CROSS-COUNTRY.

1 The first leg runners will approach from the east down Preston Hill to cross the A350. The changeover is in the minor road to Shroton.

2 New runners run to the cross-roads, then take an immediate half-left into a lane. After a few yards take the 3-sided detour around a garden. The footpath becomes a green track. Bear left when you meet a road. Then take the gate and stile to the right just after the cricket pavilion in the field.

Go diagonally left uphill to a farm track. After 100 yards turn right through a gate onto a stony track. Follow it for half a mile to the top of Hambledon Hill to the left of the trig point.

3 Turn left and follow the path between two fences to a gate. Go through and turn right. Keep to the right hand fence, which turns sharp left and then bends to the right. (you can cut the corner to meet the fence before it curves right downhill). Go through the next gate and follow the track steeply downhill alongside a wood. Near the bottom go right through a metal gate and slither down a muddy track to a road.

4 Turn left and cross the road to run along it for some 400 yds. Turn right into a lane signed 'Hanford Farms', 'School' and 'No Through Road'. Follow the lane which curves and take the right fork to Hanford Farms Ltd. Go through a gate immediately on the right with a fingerpost. Cut across the corner of the field to another metal gate. Go through it and the next and through a farmyard and out through another gate to carry straight on alongside a fence to another metal farm gate, which you go through.

5 Turn left and run along the path through the bluebell wood. Emerging, turn right through a wooden gate and then go through a metal gate to head for a metal bridge to cross the river. Go half left to a gate and pick up a muddy track. This improves into a lane which goes under a railway bridge and out to the A354 at Shillingstone.

6 New for 2008 -CAREFULLY GO STRAIGHT ACROSS THE A354 and enter a field. Run along the field with the hedge one your right, then turn left ar the far end and in 20 yards turn right onto a lane. Turn right on the lane and run for 20 yards to a T junction and turn left.

7 Run along it for 300 yards yds, just beyond an old quarry on the right, turn half right to take a little path up the hill.

This curves up through the woods and opens out into a track. Keep straight ahead as you emerge from the wood. After a few yards the track curves left, go straight ahead across the middle of the field. At the bridleway, turn right to reach a trig point. Turn left onto a grass track. Go up this for 300 yards, ignoring a right fork. Take a second fork to the right, cutting through the wood to a stony lane which leads to the changeover.