Instead it started to get all Blair Witchy.

Fag packets carefully and sinisterly positioned in the bare branches.

Strange little carefully arranged pyramids of stones and branches.

Creepy figures skulking just out of sight on the confusing maze of criss-crossing paths.

The wild echoey yelps of a bunch of out-of-control kids playing on a rope swing and splashing about in malaria-ridden brackish water.

I checked my '100 Walks For Idiot Lardbutt Motorists' book for reassurance. Nowhere did it say: "Get the hell out of there while you still can!" But it should have. Must sue the publishers.

Bravely, I decided to soldier on.

Then, as I struck out away from the urban detritus, a new hellish cacophony of sound caught my ear.

Demented whoops, snarls, shrieks, howling and yelping cannoned off the bare boughs like rifleshot. What in God's name was that all about?

Just what you need on a supposedly peaceful countryside walk - the Hound of the Baskervilles trying to mate with a crateload of panic-stricken gibbons.

What foul inhumane torture was being applied out here among the scabrous branches and farmer's fields dotted with sinister buildings surrounded by wooden pallets?

Had I stumbled on to Carlton's answer to the mountain men scene in Deliverance? "Squeal like a pig, boy... go on, squeal! Yaahaaaar!"

It turned out to be feeding time at the local dog kennels.

And boy, were these dogs (if, indeed, they were dogs) excited to see their Bonios arrive.

What an infernal racket! How do the people who live near this put up with it?

The going gets even rougher into bogs, swamps and moonscapes... click here for the next instalment of Grundi's journey into Hell!