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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Wednesday 19 October 2016

Wednesday Walk: Book 2, Walk 1 - Wendover Circular

An energetic woodland walk in the Chilterns

Book 2, Walk 1 - Wendover Circular
Length: 18.5 km (11.5 miles)
Toughness: 7 out of 10

London Marylebone: 10-27 hrs - Aylesbury train
Arrive Wendover:      11-15 hrs

Return: Wendover: 16-23; 16-53; 17-20; 17-55; 18-26; 18-52

Today's walk takes you through a number of woods and vales in the Chiltern Hills with several ups and downs to keep a SWC walker honest.

To reach the pub - the Red Lion, in Whiteleaf- in time for lunch will necessitate walking at a good, steady pace during the morning leg. Slower walkers have the option of a) taking the 09-57 hrs train from Marylebone, and we will catch you up en route, or b) your taking one of the short cuts as noted in the Walk Directions.

After lunch you have a steep hill which plays havoc on one's digestion, then more woods and the remains of Pulpit Hill Fort before you descend to Ellesborough Church. You now have a choice of routes to walk-end. The Book's main route takes you over a number of large, flat, arable fields. If these have been ploughed up recently, the harvest now having been gathered, your boots will soon weigh a ton each from clinging mud, and progress onwards will be very hard going. In these circumstances the alternative route is recommended - a steep ascent up Coombe Hill - to use up the last of your energy - then it's a steady descent into Wendover.  So the choice is heavy boots or a knackering climb !

For tea in Wendover, chocaholics make for Rumsey's on the High Street. I don't - I prefer the Shoulder of Mutton pub next to Station Approach, which serves hot drinks, the demon booze and food all day.

If you join us on today's energetic walk you are excused a visit to the gym on Thursday.
T=2.1
L=2.1
Next Week, Wednesday 26 October: Book 1, Walk 42- Holmwood to Gomshall - Leith Hill, woodlands, heathland and maybe, leaf colour.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Going dancing

Walker said...

4 of us got off the specified train at Wendover at 11.15 and we had to keep up a keen pace to cover the six miles to the Red Lion in time for lunch, arriving at 1.40 or so. There we found two walkers who had got an earlier train and so n=6 on this walk in all.

There was good colour on the tops and exposed sides of the beeches, though tinting has not yet reached down to path level. However, in compensation the paths were all still bone dry, a contrast to the gloopy mud that can now not be far in the future.

There was lots of upping and downing in this walk but we still elected to add the biggest up of all, the very steep climb onto Coombe Hill of the alternative ending. Alas, by now it was w=grey-after-a-partly-sunny-morning so the view, while extensive and sharp, was also a bit bleak.

We descended to Wendover just too late for the chocolatey temptations of Rumseys, and that was enough to send two directly to the station. But four of us repaired instead to the Shoulder of Mutton, each to their respective end of walk treats (plum crumble and custard for me and a nice pot of tea, a large red wine for others). 5.55pm train home.