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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.

Saturday 9 December 2017

Ash Vale to Worplesdon -- The Basingstoke Canal, Ash Ranges, Cobbit Hill and Whitmoor Common

SWC 136:  A varied walk in Surrey skirting the edges of the Ash Ranges outside of the Danger Areas t=swc.136

Train:  Take the 9:23 AM Alton train from London Waterloo  to Ash Vale (this train does not apparently stop at Clapham Junction), arriving at 10:14 AM.  Return trains from Worplesdon are at 40 minutes past the hour until 19:40, then they are at 44 minutes past the hour until 23:44.  Buy a day return Ash Vale plus a single from Worplesdon to Woking.

Distance:  12.3 miles (19.8 in new money)

Difficulty:  4 out of 10

This varied walk explores the undulating terrain on the outskirts of the Ash Ranges in Surrey.  It includes two short stretches along the Basingstoke Canal in the morning before passing through some woodland and various undulating bits of common land.  With any luck this terrain should not be too muddy.  Although this walk was posted in June, no report was submitted – so either no one went or those that did enjoyed it so much they wanted to keep it a secret – either way, seemed worthy of another outing.  More information and the directions can be found here.

Lunch will be at the Royal Oak in Pirbright (01483 232 466), a village pub with a wide variety of food about 6.5 miles/11.6 km from the start of the walk.

The recommended tea stop is the Jolly Farmer  in Whitmoor Common located 1.5 mile/2.5 km from the end of the walk on a 500 meter diversion.  The area around Worplsedon Station itself seems a bit sparse in terms of amenities.  

Enjoy the walk!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes there was a good turnout in June. I haven't got round to updating the directions, but not much had changed.
Paragraph 3 – I think the blue arrow has gone, but the turning is obvious enough.
Paragraph 22 – the important thing here is to keep to the right of all the campus buildings, with a fence and field to your right.

Stargazer said...

n=7 set off under bright-clear-crisp-winter-skies for a varied and interesting walk which works very well in the winter. The route in the morning followed some very picturesque sections of the Basingstoke Canal -- portions of which were covered with a thin layer of ice. We then skirted through lightly forested sandy heathlands. Five enjoyed a warming lunch at the pub where the two sandwich eaters joined us to thaw out and eventually to continue together with the walk. Point 22 of the instructions generated some discussion and could benefit from some further refinement... After a slight exploratory detour to a local farm yard, however, we did ultimately continue on piste....It appears the GPX and the written instructions vary somewhat from time to time from this point onwards....After some discussion in the woods, we concluded timings were probably better suited for continuing on the main route by-passing the pub. On this section of the route, point 32 generated some further discussion with the group splitting into 2 for the final leg -- both arriving in good time for the 16:40.