Timeout Country Walks (within easy reach of London)

Monday 31st December 2018.

A muddy walk through ancient woodland.

The last day of 2018 and we both had some holiday to use up. What better way to spend it than tramping through Buckinghamshire, swapping our offices for fresh air, sequoia trees and horizons? And we still made it home in plenty of time for a celebratory dinner out and NYE celebrations –  it was a very long day!

The book promised “This is a short and straightforward walk”, so we thought it sounded manageable. 8.5 miles (according to Nick), 9.1 miles (saturdaywalkersclub.org.uk) and rated a 2 out of 10 for toughness – so far so good – but we didn’t notice that it said 4 out of 10 during winter when it’s invariably waterlogged.

Once again, we were blessed with a dry and (double-digits) warm day, and rain and mud were far from our minds. I can’t help but think our luck will run out and eventually we’ll have a wet and windy walk, but for now we’re just enjoying that the weather gods keep smiling down on us.

We arrived at Bow Brickhill station at 10.10 . It’s more of a platform than a station. Just as well we’d stocked up on hiking snacks before we arrived! Alighting from the platform we gingerly crossed the train tracks and a few metres on found a fairly hidden stile in a hedge.

A bit distracted trying to get our walking gear in order, we didn’t notice at first that something was leaping up the path ahead of us. It moved so quickly that by the time we did spot it it was disappearing out of sight across the field. I managed to get a snap of it in the distance in this last photo (you’ll need super eyesight now I’ve reduced the photo file sizes!). No idea if it was a deer or a gigantic hare, or some more mysterious beast. Clearly we’ve been in the city too long – if it’s not a fox or a pigeon we’re stumped.

The walk took us through a typical suburban housing estate, then uphill past riding stables to a nice view back to the station.

Then into the first of the woods. Very few people around, so we had the place to ourselves and a very peaceful, occasionally very muddy few miles.

The sun was already low in the sky, but trying to break through the clouds. Dusk would start to creep in from 2pm and we had no desire to walk through the woods in the dark, so we kept up a good pace.

The walk then took us past this wonderfully eerie Tim Burton-esque pond. As always, all my photos are unedited, and this was the actual colour of the algae covered water that day.

Over a little bridge and on to an incredibly muddy stretch. Nick suggests we cross “over a stream”, but the stream had turned into a vast quagmire. Happily not too much trouble for us in our waterproof hiking boots but it did slow us down.

We snacked on the hoof – but a very poor choice of snacks this time, quite unpleasant but at least full of enough sugar to keep us going!

Then we arrive at the promised sequoia trees! Nick advises we “touch the soft and furry sequoia trees“, so we do, and pose for a few photos which don’t do justice to the magnificence of the huge old trees.

Over a road, we waited for a sports car to turn into the golf club (London suburbia!), and a short nip through a younger wood took us out onto open farmland.

We passed a store of logs and crossed a very busy motorway (pretty hair-raising and not a time to stop to take photos!). We then had to pass down a man’s driveway (of a lovely old house) and through his garden gate to get to the next stretch of woodland. He was in his driveway when we arrived there and very cheerily wished us well and waved us through.

We shut the gate and avoided the 40 shilling fine!

Through Duncombe Wood and we found a swing, passed more stables (and piles of manure steaming in the chilly December air!) and arrived at Great Brickhill and the suggested lunch stop, the Old Red Lion pub at 12.30. According to Nick, Great Brickhill was “a centre of the curious coprolite industry: the mining of fossilised phosphatic nodules used to manufacture super-phosphatic fertiliser.” I had to read that 3 times and still don’t feel much the wiser!

We’d expected the pub to be closed as it was New Year’s Eve-day, and we’d packed some sad M&S sandwiches just in case, but it was open and we ventured in.

The owner wasn’t at all welcoming, which was forgivable as she’d just finished sweeping the floor when we arrived and our boots were in a bit of a state after the quagmire. We had a very disappointing lunch of stale fish finger sandwiches that were more slimy fish skin than fish. We didn’t loiter.

We crossed the village and encountered a sewage treatment plant (curious coprolite?) and then arrived at Rushmere Country Park.

It was busier here, with family groups out enjoying the mild winter’s day.

One walker had a few dogs with him and one of them adopted us for a few miles. The owner was out of sight walking well behind us, so we got to pretend this friendly little scruff was ours for at least part of our walk!

We then crossed over soggy wetland and emerged at the canal. We hadn’t read ahead in the book, so hadn’t realised the walk would take us along the canal-side, all the way to Leighton Buzzard. It was an unexpectedly good second half to the walk!

We enjoyed seeing the busy little canal boats with their colourful window boxes, friendly occupants and smoke rising from their chimneys.

Just before we arrived at Leighton Buzzard I spotted some very early primroses buried under old Autumn leaves.

We made good time (thanks to the super short lunch stop!) and cut through Leighton Buzzard town at 2.30. Just enough time for a station cup of tea, another terrible selfie and the train home to Euston.

A nice walk in the end and we made it home before 4. I would guess Nick’s estimate of 8.5 miles was the more accurate. 90 floors in total, so not too tough – but slow going through the many muddy places.

Best bits about this walk:

• Beautiful sequoia trees
• A fun second half by the canal-side
• Easy to get to and a good length for a short winter’s day

Bad bits about this walk:

• Super muddy, and best only attempted in good, waterproof hiking boots
• Not a great experience at the chosen lunch pub, there are other options on the canal-side we’d try next time
• The dangerous dash across a motorway