Saturday morning update - RMT have suspended their strike for Saturday 5th, Monday 7th and Wednesday 9th. but most services today are likely to be disrupted due to the last minute suspension. Train operators restricted timetables are still in place for Saturday (and probably Monday).
Length: 13.3 km (8.3 miles)
Toughness: 2 out of 10
London Euston: 10-10 hrs West Midlands service to Northampton Watford Junction: 10-27 hrs
Arrive Berkhamsted: 10-43 hrs
Return
Berkhamsted to Euston: 15-53, 16-24, 17-05 and last train today is still likely to be 17-24 hrs
A new walk from Mike P - and a short, gentle one for a November day, taking in countryside around Berkhamsted not covered by other Tring and Berkhamsted walks. Leaf colour should be good in the woods today, to enhance our enjoyment of the walk.
Setting out from Berko railway station we head along the Grand Union Canal, passing three canal-side pubs, before leaving the canal-side towpath on Sharpes Lane and head for Bottom Farm. On then over fields to Ashley Green, where we find our lunchtime pub, The Golden Eagle.
After lunch we enter Hockeridge Wood, a wood owned and maintained by the Royal Forestry Society and containing a variety of species, from Christmas trees to Giant Wellingtonia. Leaving the wood we walk over school playing fields on our return to Berkhamsted. For walk-end refreshment options please refer to the Directions - but please assume the last train today remains the 17-24 hrs, so do not hang around in the town but on completing the walk make straight for the railway station. Do not miss the last train !
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Walk Directions are here: L=swc.397
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5 of us took a chance on the trains out of Euston, and the walk author Mike P did likewise for his journey from Northampton, so on meeting up we numbered n=6 today to test drive Mike's new walk. The weather in Hertfordshire was similar to that experienced by SWC walkers on today's Balcombe walk: w=light-drizzle-turning-to-steady-rain-before-lunch-overcast-but-dry-afterwards. The rain did not return until we were waiting on the platform of Berkhamsted railway station for our journeys home.
Apart from the starter leg of today's walk along the Grand Union Canal, Mike's new walk is completely different to all other SWC walks in the Tring-Berkhamsted area. Instead of high point Beacons and the vast Ashridge Estate, this new walk took us over farmland and along secluded bridleways and over vast fields, at times serenaded by noise from the A41, but nobody minded, as we made progress in now steady rain towards the village of Ashley Green, where we took respite from the rain at the Golden Eagle pub. All six of us dined and enjoyed the honest, unpretentious pub grub served to us with a smile by the new pub owner / landlord.
We set out after lunch, now in the dry, and soon found ourselves in the glorious Hockeridge Woods - probably the highlight of the walk. Leaf colour was good in these woods (elsewhere nothing to get excited about). After walking beside a row of Wellingtonia trees, with their soft, spongey bark, we came out into a large plantation of Christmas trees - some wee didlers, others soon ripe for "harvesting" for this year's market. On then through school playing fields to enter Berkhamsted. We timed the afternoon "to perfection !" Mike's train back to Northampton - the 15-41 - arrived a few minutes after we entered the railway station, and the London element had only a ten minute wait for our train - the 15-53 hrs service.
A well done and thank you goes to the managers and staff of West Midlands Trains for running their trains bang on time today, albeit to a restricted timetable. Providing train formations of twelve carriages also meant there was plenty of space for travellers.
And finally another well done and thank you goes to Mike P for creating another excellent walk for the SWC. His five companions today really enjoyed his walk - and the fact it rained all morning didn't matter at all.
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