I’ve driven past the car park for Ranscombe Farm on numerous occasions and have never thought twice about stopping.  It is located just off the M2 junction 2 on the A228 heading towards Cuxton.  Well today we fancied a change so we decided to investigate.  We parked up in the small car park at the entrance next to the busy A228 and was a bit apprehensive as to what to expect.  The notice board showed a map of the reserve which looked like it covered a rather large area of fields and woodland.  We started our walk by making our way along the road, through the entrance and up the hill.  At the top we were pleasantly surprised at how quiet it was with only the rumble of trains to be heard in the distance.  Following the well marked footpaths and using the map produced by Plantlife (download a copy by clicking here) we walked across fields, through woods and up and down hills.  Our walk lasted about 2.5 hours and with the sun shining we had a very enjoyable walk.  We will definitely be going back to explore some of the other paths in the coming weeks.