10.00 train from Marylebone to Wendover, arriving 10.45.
Buy a day return to Wendover.
This walk is based on the RMT strike timetable of Chiltern Railways.
I know this walk had an outing as recently as late March, but in times of national crisis and emergency etc...It should in any case be be looking its absolute best now, with vibrant new green leaves in the beech woods and hopefully some bluebells still - being a bit further north, they are likely to be better towards the end of the season. The walk also includes a fair bit of downland, which may have nice displays of cowslips or buttercups.
The Red Lion is the usual lunch stop, 6.2 miles into the walk, but another option just a bit further on (and reached by a very short diversion off the route) is the more modern Plough in Lower Cadsden, which serves food until 3pm. If aiming for this pub, a quite simple little map-led short cut across the top of Whiteleaf Hill cuts out the descent into Whiteleaf village and saves about a mile off the route.
Towards the end of the walk, do the alternative ending over Coombe Hill unless you want to take an intimate look at the HS2 workings north of Wendover.
In Wendover there is Rumseys and other options for tea, plus the pleasant Shoulder of Mutton pub by the station.
Trains back are at 27 past the hour until 19.27, which will be the last train today.
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N=12 on this walk, plus a dog who showed unflagging energy. The weather was w=grey. “Sunshine will break thorough,” promised the weather forecast. Reader, they lied.
At Marylebone all trains were marked delayed….except ours, which left on time. In the past these strike day services have been lightly used, but word seems to have got round. The train “non-stopped” (as rail staff like to say) to Amersham, which puzzled me as Harrow-on-the-Hill and other normal stations en route were open. Only on the way back did I work this out: they didn’t want Underground passengers looking for a quicker way to town to overload their trains. Since they were operating a skeleton service, they could have put on more than two carriages, however.
What to say about the walk? The beech leaves looked nice, there were fields thick with buttercups and some cowslips. At one point there was a creditable carpet of bluebells, but they are on the fade now. There was a bit of mud but not masses: perhaps it is finally starting to dry out.
We got rather strung out, though this was partly my fault as I twice went off piste due to an overconfidence in my ability to remember the route. It was one of those walks when you keep coming across fellow walkers unexpectedly in the woods, like stragglers from a defeated army.
At the start I had suggested bypassing Whiteleaf to lunch at the Plough in Lower Cadsden. This proposal being met with silence, five of us went to the empty Red Lion to enjoy hearty food, speedily served, while two had sandwiches outside. Two more went on to have their sandwiches on Whiteleaf Hill in the expectation of sunshine that never materialised. Unfortunately one had thought we WERE eating at the Plough and went there to find it fully booked. She squeezed a meal out of them and ate it alone. (Sorry about that…)
In the afternoon two baulked at the big steep climb up Coombe Hill and set off to walk around its base instead. They materialised just beyond its summit about 20 minutes later, insisting they had walked on a level path without any noticeable gradient. They refused to believe they WERE on top of the hill, even as we walked along its ridge, with fine views of the wildebeest-strewn plains below. There is something here that would bear further investigation.
My party got to Wendover at 17.10, with the 17.27 train yawning temptingly. I doggedly set off with a companion in search of tea, but we met two others coming from Rumsey’s, which they said was just closing, and this caused a collapse in morale. We got the (rather crowded) 17.27 after all. I don’t know if anyone went to the pub. In other times, in other company, we would have checked….
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