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Walked from Colsterworth to Grantham. An excellent and very enjoyable route. Yes, it is a little indirect, but it does a good job of avoiding the A1, passing through some lovely countryside and a couple of pretty villages. The road sections all felt safe to me. Steps in at least 5 places, so not wheel friendly. The path down from Gorse Lane to Harlaxton starts on steep and rusty metal steps, more of a ladder than a staircase.

The meeting point at Colsterworth seems a slightly odd choice, as there are no benches or bus stops, though at least it is between a church and a pub, so pretty central to the old village. We start down School Lane and cross the Witham, then head right on a good path that goes under a road in a little tunnel. Where the houses end we turn right on a fairly well trodden path, which crosses an embankment with steps on both sides. After crossing a lane we cross a field in front of Isaac Newton's Woolsthorpe Manor, and turn right to reach Woolsthorpe Road, where we turn left.

A footpath sign indicates the alleyway where the path starts, which leads to an old rallway embankment. The steps down from the embankment start a few meters to the right, and the field path was fairly well marked (and trodden by horses), though it does take a more southerly line through the large field than the right of way line.

We soon reach an old lane which we follow out to a road junction, where we head straight across on a fairly quiet road into Skillington. There is a pub (the Cross Swords) at the junction in the centre of the village, and we head straight on past the church and out of the village on a very quiet road. The path right is well waymarked, and leads us past a barn to the edge of an airfield, where we join the Viking Way, which loosely follows The Drift, an ancient drove road that marks much of the boundary between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire.

The Drift leads us to another quiet road, where we head right towards Hungerton, then take a field path past Hungerton Hall to emerge on Gorse Lane, which is a little busier bit has wide verges, and felt safe enough to me. We take the second signposted path left, which starts down the aforementioned metal stepladder then passes a farmhouse and heads steeply down an escarpment (fine views here).

I did the walk on a cold clear wintry day, and beyond a gate at the lowest part of this path there was a fairly large puddle with a very flat hard frozen crust. This was a little tricky, as I couldn't be sure which steps would go through the crust or how deep the water was, but I won't mark the route down for what is obviously an unusual and occasional hazard. Once in Harlaxton we cross a road and bear right past the church. The path from the churchyard to Church Street has a few steps at its east end.

Here we turn left and follow High Street to the A52. The crossing has no central refuge and may require care and patience. We head straight on down The Drift, then cross the Grantham Canal and follow the towpath right as far as the A1, which was built across the old canal and forces us right back to the A52. We return to the canal beyond the junctions, then follow streets to the path that leads through a tunnel to Station Road and the Grantham meeting point outside the station.

I walked this route from Grantham to Colsterworth on 28/01/23. Starting at Grantham station the route was straight-forward, though it did need following the gpx route carefully through the streets to the Grantham canal. The path out of Grantham passed under the A1 before going along the canal on an easy path, before diverting south through Harlaxton. Harlaxton had a useful village shop. There was a relatively sharp climb up the hill outside of Harlaxton and then the route joined a road for a stretch until Home Dairy Farm. This road was quite busy, with 10 cars passing, but the verges were wide on both sides and no real issue.

There was a pleasant walk through a valley to Hungerton followed by another fairly long but much quieter section of road walking, before the route joined the Viking Way along The Drift. I went in the wrong direction initially here before retracing my steps along the Drift towards Saltby Airfield, where several gliders and light aircraft were landing and taking off.

A section of field tracks took me to Skillington, before another slightly busy section of road walking (another 10 cars passed on this stretch). Again the verges were fine to get off the road where necessary. A last section of footpaths across fields brought me to Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, though there was a sizable diversion around the edge of a field where the footpath was unmarked immediately before the village. At the edge of the village was a steep set of steps up to a disused section of railway line, and then the route took me through Woolsthorpe, passed Isaac Newton's birthplace, up another set of steps, and finally into Colsterworth ending at the White Lion pub.

Overall it was a good route, suitable for all users until reaching Harlaxton. From then on the path is only suitable for able walkers. I counted 6 stiles, plus two steep sets of steps. Underfoot was a mix of tracks, roads and field footpaths, some of which were quite muddy.

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