Backup Only

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.

Saturday 21 October 2017

Saturday Walk A Chilterns Combo (Saunderton to Wendover)

SWC 10 (in reverse)/Book 1 Walk 52:  Through the turning beech woods and over the rolling Chiltern Hills from Saunderton to Wendover T=swc.10

Train:   Take the 9:13 AM Aylesbury train from London Marylebone to Saunderton, arriving at 9:55.  Late risers who prefer a shorter walk can take the 10:43 AM Banbury train from London Marylebone to Princes Risborough, arriving at 11:27 and just do Book 1 Walk 52 in its entirety.  If all goes smoothly you should rendez-vous with the Saunderton starters at the Plough – probably arriving about 20 minutes before the earlier starters.  Return trains from Wendover are at 23 and 53 minutes past the hour until 22:23. Buy a day return to Aylesbury.

Distance:  14ish miles or 22.5ish km for those more metrically minded and 8.4 miles/13.5 km for the later/shorter route.

Difficulty:  7 out of 10 (6 out of 10 for the shorter option)

As something a bit different in the Chilterns, I thought this combination of two trusted favorites would make an enjoyable extended foray through the Chiltern hills and woods.  We will set off doing SWC 10 in reverse from Saunderton to Lower Cadsden for lunch.  After lunch, we will swap over to the instructions for Book 1 Walk 52 to complete our journey from Lower Cadsden to Wendover.  Both morning and afternoon routes pass through beech woods which should hopefully be tinting nicely.  The walk also includes a couple of nice panoramic views from which to survey the surrounding autumnal countryside.  More information and the instructions can be found here and here.  Don't forget both sets of instructions and it will also be useful to print the map for the morning section!

Lunch will be at the Plough in Lower Cadsden (01844 343 302), a popular pub.  If numbers are very large, some could also have an early lunch at the Pink & Lily in Parslows Hillock.  Recommended tea places in Wendover include Rumsey's Chocolaterie open until 18:00 (on the High Street about 5 minutes from the station) and the Shoulder of Mutton Pub (next to the station).

Enjoy the walk!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

This walk sounds very interesting and I am keen to do the full 14 miles. I know the weather is light rain but rather windy. Any takers?

Monica

Walker said...

At least three of us will be doing the longer (main) option, whatever the weather....(though let's hope it is not too horrid...)

Anonymous said...

Great and see yo all at Marylebone train station for 09.15 train. Looking forward for some autumn colours and fungi spotting too.

Monica

Anonymous said...

The weather looks better in The Chilterns. Two of us intend to do the late start short cut. Anyone else interested?

Marion said...

Hoping to do the shorter option

Anonymous said...

Karen thanks very much the walk it was a lovely walk and we escape the 'so called storm Brian'. Sorry I had to dash off in the end and caught the 16.53 train with 2 minute to spare.

Thanks for the company guys.

Monica

Walker said...

So after all the hoo-ha about Storm Brian it was w=a-perfectly-nice-day, mostly only a bit breezy, with stronger gusts just once or twice, good amounts of sun, especially in the morning, one shower near the start - “nothing out of the ordinary for October” as the BBC forecast finally said the night before, after a week of much more apocalyptic warnings that probably put off a lot of walkers for this and other walks today.

Still, 8 turned out for the longer Saunderton start and 6 for the shorter Princes Risborough one, so w=14 in all. Two faster walkers on the Saunderton start soon whizzed off and were lost to history. The rest of us met up with the Princes Risborough group in the Plough Inn and walked together with them in the afternoon.

The longer, combo walk worked very well. Doing the walk directions backwards occasionally led to some minor detours - beechwoods are in any case rather confusing - but we managed well enough, aided by map, gps and fuzzy memories from doing the walk before in the normal direction. It was quite a long morning (for the record we got to the pub at 1.30pm). The Plough is now smart and efficient under Chinese ownership - an omen for the future, perhaps. For those who do not yet know, David Cameron (remember him?) took Chinese President Xi there for a pint. It thus has become a place of pilgrimage for the Chinese (I kid you not), was bought by the a Chinese company, and a complete copy of the place has now been erected in China. The food was very nice and the service cheerful. Perhaps a world dominated by China won’t be so bad after all....

In the afternoon we passed Cameron’s former country estate: some walkers stepped off the path here to be photographed beyond the signs saying that if you step off the path you are breaking the terrorism act or somesuch. Let’s hope they don’t put the pictures on social media or they might be getting a visit from Special Branch.

The beechwoods on this walk were still green at path level but lots of treetops (particularly ash) were bare when seen from above. Enough bits and pieces of other autumn colour to make it interesting. Coombe Hill was cold and windy as it always is. The cakes in Rumseys were as chocolatey as ever and the Shoulder of Mutton was cosy and christmasy. Conoisseurs went to both.

We talked of many things - Brexit, how best to learn Italian, whether it is OK to vote on Strictly when you did not get home in time to watch all the performances... We got a train home at whatever time we did. It was dark anyway.

Walker said...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/06/chinese-firm-pub-david-cameron-xi-jinping-pint-plough-cadsden

Anonymous said...

The two fast walkers arrived at the Plough same time as the late risers and had lunch together, then sped off again before the slow party from the early group arrived at the pub.

Marcus said...

n=14
w=mostly-sunny-and-breezy-with-Storm-Brian
-failing-to-make-an-appearance