18/10/14 - Smell My Cheese

London Loop Stage 11
Start - Elstree and Borehamwood Station
End - Cockfosters
Distance - 10.5 Miles
Caches - 5 After a busy three weekends, I am back on the walking trail, adding another leg to the London Loop.

There is a ritual associated with these trips.  Due to the cheap rail tickets requiring an early start, refreshments are made the night before.  Malt loaf for breakfast, turkey rolls for lunch and a luxury sausage roll for a treat.  All made on the Friday night, wrapped in foil and left - with my car keys so I don't forget them - in the fridge.

Leave at 6:30am for a very busy 7:40am to Euston.  Carriage B is mental - with an army of men getting drunk and making an almighty racket.  Despite my reservation, I take Carriage A and settle down to a nice coffee and open up my Malt Loaf.

Oh Dear - I appear to have mistakenly packed the Stilton

One of the more unusual breakfasts.

Everything else with the journey goes swimmingly and thanks to going via Kentish Town, I alight at Elstree and Borehamwood station 30 minutes earlier than anticipated.

Nice to be greeted by a friendly face

Cache 1 is found instantly, up on the Station Bridge.  The walking can commence and its roads all the way Scratchwood, which provides some fine walking through the woods.

Autumnal in Scractwood 

One of the great things about the London Loop is the signposting.  It really is near impossible to get lost, with the green arrows continually pointing the way.  The Hertfordshire locals have added local information to aide the weary loopers.

Accurate Signage

I'm now 3/4 of the way through the path and I can say with some assurance that the worst bit of walking is on this leg.  On exiting Scratchwood, we are forced to walk about 1/2 a mile down the A1 to get to an underpass to walk the 1/2 mile back up the other side.  This is not pleasant.

From the golf course on the other side, the London Loop shares a stretch with the Dollis Valley Greenway.  Its starts off with some fairly uninspiring country walking through fields - with nothing much to look at - and gets progressively deteriorates as it skims a rough looking housing estate in Barnet.  There are a few caches to break things up.

Little going for this stretch of the Loop

Decide to cheer myself up with a lunch break in a park in the shadow of Barnet Football ground.  Open rucksack and am instantly surrounded by three dogs who have obviously been attracted by the smell of ripe cheese.

The owner calls one off by shouting "Arthur - Stop Poncing", which I am not sure is in the Barbara Whitehouse book of dog training.

More road walking and then suddenly things take a massive improvement for the better as I reach the delightfully named Monken Hadley.  The Loop does this sometimes - bores you to death and then suddenly reveals a gem of a location and introduces you to something unexpected.

All is revealed on an information board.  The location of the "Battle of Barnet" in the War of the Roses and also the home of Dr Livingstone.

It's also very pleasing on the eye.  A delight to walk through.

Dr Livinstone's Cottage

Information

Very Pretty Church

Enthusiasm restored, I walk through the woodland of Monken Hadley Common with renewed vigour.  A couple of caches are bagged before being delivered to the outskirts of Cockfosters, complete with a perfectly placed pub.

Just what is needed.

Tube station is over the road, where I share a trip back to the capital with a mixture of Hull and Arsenal Fans who are cutting it fine.  It's 2:30pm.