We have a lovely cooked breakfast at the Lawn House and then head into the attached Moulton Village Stores to buy lunch. Rich had been worried that there might not be anything here, but there is an array of freshly baked pies and cakes and they make bespoke sandwiches with the bakery bread.
Moulton and all the villages we go through this morning are comfortable and prosperous. This area south of Newmarket is racing country and Newmarket has been the home of flat racing for centuries. We pass beautiful stud farms, gallops and paddocks, though we don't see the racehorses who are like supermodels kept under wraps. There has been the huge amount of investment here over several years that Breckland so obviously lacked: horses pay better than the military.
We climb the hill out of Moulton and turn left onto a grassy track running between paddocks and some gallops. A red kite flies low across our path, the first of many we see today. The condition of the paddock is incredible, even the track we are walking on is perfectly manicured and feels like velvet carpet underfoot. The gallops have sand and metalled sections so the horses are fully prepared for whatever ground they might face and can be selected to run according to each racetrack's conditions.
We descend a hill and, as we reach the access road beyond, the reason for the fantastic facilities becomes clear. The farm signs are painted in the unmistakable blue and white of the most famous livery: this is Godolphin land.
Godolphin Arabian (c. 1724-1753), named after his owner the 2nd Earl of Godolphin, was one of three stallions brought from the desert that founded the modern thoroughbred horse. In 1993, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Makhtoum, selected the name Goldolphin for his newly established racing empire. It is arguably the most successful, and certainly the largest, racing enterprise in the world, spanning four continents. Its headquarters are variably listed as Newmarket or Dubai. Sheikh Mohammed also owns the Inverinate Estate we visited on the HoCWalk and he is the younger brother of Sheikh Hamdan who, until his death, owned the Shadwell Estate we walked through on day 2, complete with its hypothetical byway.
We walk up the hill and, as if on cue, two young Emiratis cycle past, stopping to say hello and cheerfully wish us a good day. We cross the road at the top and pass through a hedge to catch a glimpse of Ely cathedral way in the distance. We descend Dane's Bottom and then walk over an earthwork. This is the Devil's Ditch or Devil's Dyke, a linear earthen barrier that runs for seven miles and reaches ten metres in height. It is thought to have been built by the Anglo-Saxons and Edward the Elder is reported to have 'laid waste to their land between the Dyke and the Ouse' after he had defeated the Danes from East Anglia. It completed the natural barriers of the marshy fens in the north west and the dense forest in the south.
We go up the hill into Stetchworth and stop for a break, meeting a friendly little dog called Trinket and her besotted elderly owner. We start off again and the path goes through another stud farm and we pass some brood mares grazing. As we enter the next field, there is a large herd of deer scattered across the horizon. Good land for horses is also good land for deer, it seems.
We are now on the combined Icknield Way and Stour Valley Path (Newmarket to Cattawade, not to be confused with the more famous Stour Valley Way in Dorset). We are making swift progress thanks to our cooked breakfast and stop for lunch in a sunny spot on a field edge.
After some time, we are woken by softly falling raindrops, disturbing a flock of partridges who had settled nearby as we get up. We are now firmly in Cambridgeshire and have left Suffolk and its horses behind.
We continue along the Icknield Way, up and down over the chalk and ridges. As we walk along, an end of the day hare stops on the path to watch us before leaping off ahead. We soon climb up towards Balsham and The Black Bull, today's rest for the night.
Total distance: 72 miles