Length: 16.3km (10.1 miles) T=1.5
Toughness: 4 out of 10
9.57 train from Marylebone to Great Missenden, arriving 10.38.
Buy a day return to Great Missenden.
I have slight nervousness in posting this walk, my nervousness being about the meet-up at the start, which will be in the car park (ie not on the platform please) of Great Missenden station. We must split with the utmost rapidity into groups of six and then stay split. This is no longer a matter of debate: £200 fines are possible. Possibly start thinking even on the train about who you plan to walk with. Sub-groups might include fast walkers, slow walkers, those that plan to have a pub lunch.
It now being autumn (gloom!), where better to be than in the Chilterns? This undemanding walk has lots of nice scenery, and a whole run of possible pubs, if any want to brave contact tracing and the new restrictions to use them. Otherwise, bring all the food and water you expect to need. Tea may be possible in Old or New Amersham (a man can dream...): at least a takeaway to have in the park?
Trains back from Amersham are at 09 and 39 to Marylebone, taking 37 minutes. Underground services to Baker Street go at 17 and 47 past, taking 49 minutes. I read somewhere that a normal rail ticket (eg a Great Missenden return) does work through the barriers at Baker Street (only: not other Underground stops), but have never tested this out.
6 comments:
Well done Walker for managing to post
Please don't embarrass the SWC, and yourself, in these awkward times by being one of the usual suspects too lazy/entitled to take the instructions. Be prepared to make yourself a pod of one, rather than sponging.
I rewrite my post above / below in case the anon poster is confused by my last post
Well done Walker on managing to post on the new version (3) of the blogger. I had a go for a while but haven't quite cracked it yet
Bridie
Thank you, Walker. Will take instructions.
What browser are you using. Bridie? I found our webmaster's instructions did not work in Safari, but I could do it on Chrome. If you are trying to post and cannot, you could send me the text and I will post it for you. (Go into Blogger, then Settings, then Permissions if you don't have my email: it is listed there)
I must confess, dear reader, that I had a cunning plan in posting a Chilterns walk (apart from wanting to do one myself): namely that it might limit the number of walkers who turned up. In this I was a miserable failure. Some n=20 got off the train. But by dispensing with the meet and greet we were able to disperse immediately into groups of less than six, thus keeping within the rules. What follows must therefore be a partial account of the experience of my “bubble”: other sub-groups may care to file their own report.
Surprisingly it was a lovely sunny morning, and the scenery of this old favourite looked as pretty as it has ever done. I was with a “fast set” and they fairly whizzed through Little Missenden. I cast a longing glance at the garden of the Red Lion, which was festooned with empty tables. Left to myself I might have stopped for lunch there. Did anyone else do so?
Instead we carried on up the bridleway, the one which in winter is often flooded. But at present its problem is that it has become very overgrown. It is not yet impassible, but it is a dull green tunnel and if someone does not take a strimmer to it soon it could become a problem.
Passing through the woods, we came to the Squirrel, which was not at all busy: pretty much empty in fact. There was a great deal of palaver at the door and some confusion over procedures, but we were eventually seated in the garden and served at the table with reasonable efficiency. During lunch the skies clouded up and there were some drops of rain, but this never amounted to much. So w=sunny-in-the-morning-and-then-cloudy.
Despite lingering a bit over lunch, we still got to Old Amersham at 3.20pm. We were able to get tea at Seasons cafe at an outside table. Feeling it was too early to finish, we then repaired to a pub. Here palaver had been elevated to performance art. Temperatures were taken on two different parts of each customer’s body, QR codes were scanned, and detailed instructions were given on how to and from the loo. The only thing the staff seemed to forget about was actually producing drinks, picking up a bottle of wine and bringing it and four glasses to the table seeming to take an age.
Then up through the woods to the station. It felt like we were getting back to London very late. In fact it was only 7.30pm. So purely to support the beleaguered hospitality industry we had a very pleasant Thai meal in a moderately busy restaurant near Marylebone.
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