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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday 26 October 2019

Saturday Walk - Leaf Colours (finally?): Wendover to Great Missenden

Length: 21.6 km (13.4 mi)
Ascent/Descent: 360 m; Net Walking Time: ca. 5 hours
Toughness: 6 out of 10
or
Length: 16.4 km (10.2 mi)
Ascent/Descent: 290 m; Net Walking Time: ca. 4 hours
Toughness: 4 out of 10

Take the 09.27 train from Marylebone to Aylesbury (Harrow-on-the-Hill 09.39, Rickmansworth 09.49 etc.), arrives Wendover 10.15, for the full walk.
Or the 09.57 Aylesbury Vale Parkway service, if walking the short version.
Return trains: xx.29 and xx.59 hours (51 minutes journey time). Buy a Wendover return ticket.

This fairly energetic walk combines some of the finest elements of the Chiltern Hills, while having very little overlap with other walks in the area. After leaving Wendover in a south easterly direction on the Ridgeway the walk rises into woods. It then passes along fields to get to the picturesque green in The Lee, a conservation area village. From there it continues through woodland and the beautiful Lee Common to a 16th century lunch pub at Swan Bottom. The afternoon offers constantly changing scenery. It completely avoids settlements and roads, mostly following grassy fields, while still passing through a variety of varied and characterful woods. Several beautiful valleys are crossed in between and the finish is a scenic descent into Great Missenden.

Lunch: Cock and Rabbit Inn with its reassuringly (or frighteningly, depending on your perspective) traditional Graziemille Restaurant (7.3 km/4.6 mi) or The Old Swan in Swan Bottom (10.0 km/6.2 mi, food to 14.30). It is advisable to book ahead for the latter.

For walk directions, map, height profile, photos and gpx/kml files click here. t=swc.140.a

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Guys
Was in Wendover yesterday some autumn colours not fully yet. Amazing no mud but I am sure there will be this weekend. The cafe in the woods had been revamp very smartly updated especially the bathrooms! I believe the food is good judging by the empty plates. Plenty of outside seating for picnic. Did not get any good mushrooms nor chest nut but plenty of watercress - very tasty soup!Enjoy the walk on Saturday.
Monica

Thomas G said...

w=some-drizzle-to-lunch-rain-thereafter-at-times-hard
Just n=1 on the walk today. Plenty of autumnal colours in the trees, but most of the leaves are already on the ground... Some mushrooms about (parasols mainly), but not many. Unsurprisingly some mud, but less than it has been, certainly on the most notorious stretches of the walk, in the early woods for example.
Lunch at The Old Swan was a delight as it usually is, and I stayed on extra long to make use of the Wifi to follow a football game to the final whistle. Being just by myself, I then decided to actually walk the Wendover ending, as that bit of text needed a check more than the Missenden ending.
Leaf-strewn holloways and paths, the rain falling, the mist descending through the trees, and hardly a soul about (apart from dog walkers and joggers in Wendover Woods), it was very autumnal indeed.