The long narrow stretch of Mouton Marsh nature reserve is entirely man-made, mostly as a result of soil extraction when the sea bank was raised in 1981. There are two large saline lagoons and a patch of woodland which used to be a refuse tip – this was planted with a variety of trees over a 10 year period. Good news…..

Anyway, yesterday we were walking anti-clockwise and today clockwise – so up we go onto the sea wall – heads down against the wind. There is wind and there is Lincolnshire wind – a relentless force that sweeps across the marshes and flatlands with nothing to temper its fury. Up goes the hood – there’s not much to see anyway…….

Roughly two miles along the path the map indicates a righthand turn inland down the side of a drainage channel, followed by a left hand turn up the other side and back to the main drag. On the ground there is nothing to stop us skipping across the mouth of the detour to carry straight on, so this is what we do, saving us a mile of extra walking – strange.

Twenty minutes later the same thing happens – why is my OS map bent on sending us round the houses? These are the things that occupy a mind that has otherwise very little distraction.

Eventually the path bends round to the right and runs through a small carpark and a pumping station. We wonder whether this would be a good place for some lunch but there is nowhere to perch, never mind sit. Anyway, the path ahead looks a bit more exciting so we decide to wait.

The red flag is up but we have been told by a local that the flag doesn’t mean we can’t walk through, only that there may be helicopters and jet plane manoeuvres up ahead – I hope so.

A wiki tells me that Holbeach Air Weapons Range provides facilities for the RAF and Nato allied aircraft to practise dropping bombs and firing their aircraft weapons. Static bombing targets include a number of retired merchant ships that have been beached on the Wash for this purpose. I can see one of these out on the marshes but too far away to get a clear photo.

We walk past an observation tower, one of three and just as we reach the control tower, we hear the roar of a jet overhead – the pilot is having fun doing somersaults and he doesn’t drop any bombs.

Five minutes later, one of the most recognisable sounds from the Vietnam war – the Chinook helicopter.

After all this excitement it’s time to turn inland to make our way back through fields to Gedney Drove End and the sad fate of the Rising Sun, that just can’t drum up enough custom – I guess it should really be called the Setting Sun.

Distance: 12 miles