Length: 14.1 km (8.8 miles), with optional extension (see below). Toughness: 2/10
Take a Northern line tube (High Barnet branch) to arrive at Totteridge & Whetstone (in TfL Zone 4) by 11:00.
Although it starts from a tube station this is a proper rural walk through London's “Northern Heights”, undulating countryside which escaped the remorseless expansion of London's surburbs. The walk notes are particularly informative about the wildflowers you might encounter along the way, although on a closer reading I fear I might have posted this walk a little too late for the snake's-head fritillaries and too early for the buttercups.
The suggested lunch place is an “efficient chain pub” in Mill Hill which you should reach by 1pm, the Three Hammers. At the end of the walk you can relax in one of the coffee shops near the station, or the Orange Tree pub if you take the alternative ending via Totteridge village.
Extension to Cockfosters: 19.8 km (12.3 miles), 3/10. If it's a pleasant spring day you could consider taking the “Longer walk to Cockfosters” across more green spaces and wooded commons, with a café in Trent Park for tea. On this extension you could choose to break off in High Barnet if you wanted to return on the Northern line. Both of these stations are in Zone 5.
You'll need to bring the directions from the L=swc.228 page.
1 comment:
After some minor transport delays six had gathered outside the station wondering whether to wait for a seventh who was rumoured to be in the vicinity, but we soon gave up and set off. About an hour later we miraculously encountered said colleague wandering about with no clear idea of where he was going (or indeed where he had come from), so we were n=7 on a w=sunny-morning-cloudy-afternoon sort of day.
The satellites over Totteridge appeared to be askew today as those with GPS devices occasionally drifted off course, but careful reading of the authour's detailed directions kept us (mostly) on track. These alerted us to a daunting section of overgrown shrubs leading into Darlands Lake to which the author had previously given “a good clipping”, but he might need to take a machete next time. All agreed it was nice to do a rural walk inside the M25 but in a few years this stretch might resemble an Amazonian jungle. Let's hope that the dedicated volunteers who'd laid some nice paths inside the reserve can stretch to an extra 100m outside it to provide an easier entry point.
As a result of our late start and leisurely progress it didn't take much effort to persuade the sub-group I was in to opt for the morning short cut. We reached the pub just before 1pm and found it not too crowded with plenty of staff, so we were able to get fed and watered without fuss. As someone noted elsewhere the long succession of fields after lunch were very squelchy in places and the author's occasional use of the word “quagmire” was no exaggeration. On sight of a nice tarmac path we split up with four taking what looked to be the easier village ending. My group of three got to the station around 4pm where my companions wandered into the village looking for tea'n'cake, but I slumped onto a tube and an incident-free journey home.
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