A Wonderful Walking Weekend

We returned from Cyprus on the last Thursday in June, leaving us with the Friday and the weekend to fill before we had to go back to work on the Monday. A part of me wanted to make the most of the extra time to head off to Wales or the Lakes and get some UK mountain walking in; to add another one or two QMDs to my steadily growing list.

In the end unfortunately real life and the requirements of post holiday processing got in the way and we stayed at home. We tidied up around the house, sorted through the washing and made a start organising the plethora of photographs we took. So it was time that needed spending, but it still wasn’t mountain walking.

Back to work on the 1st of July and a week of work lay ahead. With nothing booked for the weekend I started thinking about finally heading up to the mountains. But I was away on business Monday to Thursday, so no time for preparation. Getting it all sorted Friday night to head out early on Saturday morning seemed too stressful. I didn’t want to stress about our hobby but I also didn’t want to pass up what promised to be a glorious weekend.

D suggested a local walk, but I couldn’t think of anywhere to go. I was feeling low, depressed about not going to the mountains, annoyed at myself for not making the most of the weekend. D suggested looking at some of the routes from Country Walking, which I had filed away. I found several for Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire and we narrowed it down to a few possibilities.

We settled on a “Moderate” 51/4 mile walk for Saturday afternoon, from Frieth in Buckinghamshire, with a couple of options for Sunday.

Frieth

This walk was published in the December 2011 edition of Country Walking and is apparently available on Trailzilla as walk ID TZID9000.

The walk description suggests parking at the Yew Tree pub or on the roadside, nearby. Heading west from the Yew Tree there are a couple of parking spaces outside the church and a few more outside the village hall.

The route heads north into Mousells Wood before turning West and descending into the village of Fingest. Turning right at the Chequers pub to pass the church and then turning West again to climb Turville Hill. Passing the windmill on the other side of the hill you descend into the village of Turville. There are great views from the hill of this village, which was used as the setting for the Vicar of Dibley.

There is another pub that you pass, the Bull and Butcher, before crossing a couple of fields to the hamlet of Skirmett, where there is yet another pub.

From Skirmett, head East and climb back into Mousells Wood to then descend South East back to the village of Frieth.

The walk notes suggest that it should take about 3 hours to complete this walk. It took us considerably longer as we kept stopping to take photos. But then, as we kept telling each other, there was nothing to rush back for, the weather was absolutely glorious and we were having a fantastic time. It wasn’t the mountains of North Wales, and it certainly wasn’t the Troodos mountains of Cyprus, but the views were still stunning in their own way.

Long Hanborough / Belnheim / Stonesfield

With more time available to us on the Sunday we decided to attempt the more challenging walk from Long Hanborough. This 12 mile walk is described as “Challenging” in Country Walking, although it is only the distance that makes it challenging as the terrain is easy going. Country Walking estimate a time of 5 hours to complete the walk. Again it took us slightly longer as we took quite  a few photos in the early stages.

All of my photos can be seen on my Flickr site.

This walk was published in the Spring 2013 edition of Country Walking and is available via Trailzilla with the ID of TZID15821.

The walk notes suggest parking on the roadside near Hanborough station. If you don’t fancy leaving your vehicle on the verge then head West and then turn right up Park Lane, just before you reach a pub on the right. If you used the pub for lunch then they might let you leave the car in their car park. Parking in Park Lane also has the advantage that it chops a few hundred metres off the start and end of the walk.

From Long Hanborough the walk crosses a couple of fields to meet the river and the road at Combe. There is a section of road walking before you pick up the Wychwood way and head East to East End, before entering the Blenheim Estate at Combe Gate.

Follow the paths through the estate, turning right along the footpath in a small valley and then along the side of the lake to the Grand Bridge. We then ignored the walk notes and walked straight up the field towards the Column of Victory. Although there is no official path we continued north west along the tree lined avenue across a low wooden fence to pick up the tarmac drive that leads to the northern gate.

At the last fence before the gate turn left and follow the straight path along Akeman street. Its amazing to think that 2000 years ago Roman soldiers would have walked and ridden along that same route. How different would it have looked then?

Akeman street leads to the river at Stonesfield where we turned south follow the bridleway past the Roman villa at North Leigh before turning East again towards Mill Wood and finally back towards Long Hanborough. This final section was perhaps the most confusing, with several possible paths leading through the woods. As we passed the disused quarry we spotted a fox padding through the woods.

There was a range of flora and fauna on this walk including:

Plants
Ragweed	Ambrosia artemisiifolia
Speedwell	Veronica chamaedrys
Hogweed	Heracleum sphondylium
Meadowsweet	Fillipendula ulmaria
Shepherd’s Purse	Capsella bursa-pastoris
Pineapple weed	Matricaria discoidea
Horse tail	Equisetum
Yarrow	Achillea millefolium
Lady’s Bedstraw	Galium verum
Nightshade
Bindweed	Convolvulus
	Scabious
Woolly thistle	Cirsium eriophorum
Campion	Silene (alvensis?)
Insects
Burnett moth	Zygaena filipendulae
Meadow brown butterfly
Animals
Fox	Vulpes vulpes

The First Ride of the New Year

Its the last day of the holidays and back to work tomorrow. The weather is better than yesterday and we need to get fit for out mountain biking weekend at Plas Y Brenin. So, we ventured out on the Mountain Bikes around Christmas Common, near Stokenchurch.

The full map of the route can be found on Trailzilla and the photos are on my Flickr site.

We parked the van at the car park at the top of Watlington Hill (SU710 935) and headedSouth East on the Bikes to Christmas Common itself, before turning left towards the M40. We had intended to park at the car park on this road (SU726 955) but there is a 6′ 6″ height limit and we could not get the van in. If you have an ordinary car then there should be no problem.

Just before the bridge that crosses the M40 we took the bridleway to the right. This runs parallel to the road before dropping down into  Hailey Wood. The first section was quite slippery but it gets better as you go down. We followed the bridleway all the way to Wellground Farm – a fantastic bit of downhill. There is a bit of a road section but the bridleway carries straight on when the road turns sharp right.

We kept straight on, coming out at the spot height (128m – SU742 932). From here we took the bridleway that leads to Northend. The first section of this is very very steep and very wet but it does eventually meet a tarmact track which is easier to follow into Northend. Turning right we followed the road through Northend until we came to the wooden signpost on the left indicating a permissive bridleway.

This leads down past Launders farm and across a very flinty and slippery field before entering a wood. The trail gets easier in the wood and very soon we got to the junction with the Oxfordshire way. We turned left and followed the bridleway down through the woods and out past Turville Park Farm. About 1km further on the path becomes a track and the going gets easier.

We followed the track all the way to the road, where we turned right to meet the B480 at Whitepond Farm. From here we turned right and followed the B480 for about 300m. As the road carried on round to the left we went straight on up the permissive bridleway that leads to Whitehill Shaw and then to Hollandridge Farm where it becomes Hollandridge Lane.

With a bit more hard slog and a final effort this leads back to Christmas Common, from where the car park is easily reached.

In total about 19.6km (12.25m) over the course of 3.5 hours or so. Quite hard work due to the wet and slippery conditions, especially on the steep up hill sections and where the mud was particularly deep.