Aylesbury Vale Parkway to Aylesbury
Length: 24.3km (15.5 miles) Toughness: 5 out of 10
09:57 Aylesbury Vale Parkway train from Marylebone arriving Aylesbury Vale Parkway at 11:03.
Return trains from Aylesbury are at xx:29 and xx:48, taking just over an hour., with an extra train at 17:18. Buy an off-peak day return to Aylesbury Vale Parkway.
This walk traverses the rolling landscape of East Buckinghamshire with good views into Aylesbury Vale and back to the Chilterns, before finishing with a long stretch along a branch of the Grand Union Canal. Two possible short cuts are described, reducing the walk length to 21.7km or 18.3km.
The recommended lunch pub for the main walk is The White Swan (01296 641228) in Whitchurch. Taking the short from Weedon entails using The Five Elms (01296 641439) at Weedon as the lunch pub. Do ring the pubs as you set off to reserve a table for lunch.
You will need to download the Walk Directions.
T=swc.194
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Hope ‘more info to come’ includes some short cut
Yes, the short cuts are mentioned in the expanded walk post, but you didn't have to wait for this. If you click on the walk number in the coloured panel on the right side of the walk header, it will take you to the walk's introduction page with full details of short cuts, lunch stops, etc.
Hi,
I would like to do this walk with Walk options - cutting out 3.8 miles?
Any other takers?
Shortcuts: It is possible to shorten the walk in two ways. Shortcuts I and II are mutually exclusive though:
Shortcut I from Weedon to Rowsham cuts out 6.2 km length and 84m ascent/descent (lunch in Weedon),
giving a rating of 3/10;
Shortcut II from Hardwick to Aston Abbotts cuts out 2.8 km length and 51m descent/re-ascent (lunch in
Hardwick or Aston Abbotts) giving a rating of 4/10.
Talk about shortcuts, we found shortcuts alright. All N=5 of us more or less decided at the station, that on such a w=very-hot day, there was nothing for it but to take the big shortcut, Shortcut 1.
And so we set off across the Buckinghamshire Serengeti, disturbing the occasional herd of woolly ungulates. Imagine our horror when we arrived at Weedon shortly after 12 to find that that walk’s only pub wasn’t going to open till 2. Pints of imaginary cider started evaporating before my very eyes!
However, like Shackleton at the South Pole and Franklin at the North, it didn’t take long for our true British resolve to kick in. Fortified only by water from the doggy tap (yes doggy tap) we decided to press on with the short walk. This lasted about 5 minutes. Then one of our number, Midshipman Boon I believe it was, said “Ive just invented Shortcut 3, lets take that”. So we took that. It led us more or less directly to Bierton - via an illegally locked gate, up and down the sides of a ditch, over a concealed bridge and through an overgrown kissing gate. But we got there and my cider was waiting for me. Then Midshipman Boon said “Ive just invented Shortcut 4, lets take that”. So we took that. This took us a quicker way to the canal – except for where we got lost in a new housing estate built over the “Aylesbury Round Walk”. We had to ask a local the way out (we didn’t mention SWC though). And so we found the canal which eventually led us to another pub where another pint of cider was waiting for me, then to the station where a train was waiting for me. We must have walked a whole 8 miles. General consensus on the walk (the little we saw of it) was that it is not the most exciting SWC has to offer. “It’s a day out though” chipped in another.
Post a Comment