28/11/20 - Chiltern Chain Walk - Stage 9 - Chalfont St Giles to Amersham

Distance - 11.5 Miles

Geocaches - 4 and an Adventure Lab Cache

Walk Inspiration

Previous Stages - Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, Stage 5, Stage 6, Stage 7, Stage 8

Final Weekend of Lock down 2, so I come prepared for the latest leg of the Chiltern Chain Walk with my own picnic of scotch eggs, malt loaf and Timothy Taylor Landlord.

Stage 10, I may be able to go into a boozer for a substantial meal.  All depends on the Tiers of a Clown called Boris.

The walking on today's leg cannot be really recommended too highly - but there's plenty of interest at the two villages that bookend the route.

Leaving from Chalfont St Giles, it's lanes and horse fields to Jordan's.  Not she of several autobiographies fame but an ancient hamlet that contains a Quaker Meeting house from 1688.  Was it worth the diversion South and lengthy stretch on a boy racer lane?  Maybe not.  But then, neither were the views as I reach the featureless map squares of the high ground above the Misbourne Valley.

How do you spend your Saturday's?

Only Amersham can save the day. 

An Adventure Lab Cache does a good job of pointing out places of interest in the Old Town.  Without it, I would have surely missed the Almshouses, the jail inside the Market Hall and the no need to rub it in, Brewery.

Amersham locals providing a warm greeting to rambling cachers

The Kings Arms Hotel - location for a substantial meal on Stage 10?

Amersham Church

Any hopes of saving money by the pubs being closed are dashed through the reckless decision to have a take away coffee at the Grocers, a rather smug looking delicatessen.  My incredulity at the 15 minutes waiting time was superseded by the £2.80 price of an Americano.   And I'm sure it was only a half.

The route back is easy walking along the crystal clear River Misbourne - taking me all the way to Chalfont St Giles.  No point checking out the Merlin pub, so I head in the opposite direction to see the Milton's Cottage - a place of refuge when the poet escaped the last but one plague in London.

Seems fitting, in its way.

River Misbourne

Miltons Cottage

21/11/20 - Three Counties walk from Tenbury Wells, with a Black Cab Stout Picnic

Distance - 11.2 Miles

Geocaches - 3

Walk Inspiration

A fellow walk 1000 miler on Twitter provided the inspiration for this walk. His walk, as he homed in on the magic 1000 mile annual commitment, was tweeted and looked intriguing. A walk from nearby Tenbury Wells that visited three counties - Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire.  

Alas, he wouldn't share the route with me, as he was following a Ramblers Members only download guide. Instead, I was able to google the key locations and find a similar walk from the stalwart of Country Walking Magazine, Julie Royle.

Rucksack packed with supplies, I head off to Tenbury Wells.  Google the wiki for the history.  Its a proud town, packed with historic buildings, all detailed with little blue plaques that come in handy on my return.

A couple of architectural photo opportunities, both with Geocaching.  Tenbury Bridge and more interestingly, Burford Church.  I rattled the door to gain access but I think its locked up for Covid, despite signs saying it would be open 10am till 4pm.  The 1426 tomb of Princess Elizabeth, sister to Henry IV will have to wait for another day.

Tenbury Wells Bridge and the River Teme

Burford Church and Cross

Its a climb out of the Teme Valley, up past Bank Farm and aiming for Greete and Little Stoke - mainly on car free lanes.  The views are outstanding - the Teme Valley to the South and the Clee Hills to the North and in this instance, the lanes are providing a nice respite from the mud.

Lanes near Greete, under the brooding Clee Hills

Footpaths are picked up again at Little Stoke but you have to love the UK, where you can follow the signs and stride out across the beautifully manicured lawns of Bleathwood Manor - a farm in name only.

View from a footpath

The River Teme is crossed at Little Hereford, via a footbridge.  A minor diversion to look at the directional sign post at Berrington Mill and its back to town along a very muddy cliff top path, high over the river.  Yep, I fell over.

Little Hereford Footbridge

Easy Navigation at Berrington Mill

75% through lockdown 2, I have once again come prepared with my own supplies.  Lidl have the Belgian Beer Special Offer on - not kept in the booze aisle, but in the special aisle that contains deep sea diving boots and mig welders.  After a ram raid of tripels and quadruples, I slipped a pork pie into my trolley to accompany my first ever Fullers Black Cab Stout.  A stile providing seating.

Lunch Stop

Into Tenbury Wells and time to do one of the 3 multi stage caches available.  This involved collecting information from 6 blue plaques on buildings of interest.  

The first time caching has been interrupted by a cheesemongers but as well as supporting international budget supermarkets, I am supporting the independents too.

10 days until normal refreshment services return.

The Kings Head, Tenbury Wells

14/11/20 - Dowles Brook, Wyre Forest and River Severn for Butcombe Goram IPA

Distance - 9.5 Miles

Geocaches - 1

Walk Inspiration - Country Walking Magazine, Oct 2020, Walk 8

Following the advice this week - so a short drive for a long walk.

Parking to be found at Dowles Brook at the end of Dry Mill Lane, Bewdley.

This walk is on very familiar paths to me, so I tried to imagine it through the eyes of a newcomer.

They would have been impressed with the easy walking along Dowles Brook - with stops at the information boards detailing the history of the former mills.

Knowles Mill on...

.... Dowles Brook

Autumn is the time to walk in any woodland and the Wyre Forest is no expection.   A decent ride up to the scar left by the water pipeline and then over into Pound Common at Button Oak.

Forest Walking

Route finding across Pound Green is hard work - there's myriad paths and even with a GPS, none of them seemed to bare much resemblance to the OS Map.  If you are heading North East, you should reach the delightful Severn Valley Station at Arley.

No Trains Today

Its at Arley where I pick up the River Severn for easy navigation on dreadfully muddy paths all the way back to Dowles Brook.

The River Severn

Under Victoria Bridge

And turn right when you reach the disused railway line along Dowles Brook

Not a bad walk within four miles from home.

But what about the Real Ale, Mappiman?

If you do this in either normal times or under a functioning Government, you would have the choice of three pubs - technically promoting this walk into Pub Crawl category.

Traditional Banks's at the Button Oak

Winner of Shropshire's Stupidest Pub Name - Ye Olde New Inn

Where you can enjoy a Virtual Cavery

The Pick of the bunch - The Harbour Inn, Arley

In full on boy scout mode, I came prepared for closed hospitality.  

Chicken Baps, a gooey Scotch Egg all nicely washed down with a Butcombe Goram IPA.

07/11/20 - Sutton Park - Adventure Lab Caching

Distance - 7 Miles

Geocaches - 1 ALC (providing 5 finds)

Walk Inspiration - Country Walking Magazine May 2020 - Walk 10

My Appearance - Woolly Hat, glasses perched at the of my nose and a big white Lock Down 2 beard.

Sutton Park - Packed Solid with families, getting in the way and forming terrible queues at refreshment centres.

My Son - Proclaiming tomorrow's Birmingham Mail headline as;

"Second Rate Santa breaks 2m Social Distancing Rules"

This walk more or less follows the route laid down in Country Walking Magazine but has been slightly adapted for to take in the locations of an Adventure Lab Cache.  For the unaware, this is an online treasure hunt where you look for information detailed at 5 locations, to which you are guided by your phone's GPS.  The one for Sutton Park is quite a walk and takes in the main highlights - Three of the bigger pools - Longmoor, Bracebridge and Blackroot, the rifle butts and Rowton's Well.

And what an asset to the 2nd City Sutton Park is.  2400 Acres making it one of the biggest urban parks in Europe.  It's stupidly busy at the hotspots around the bistros and pools but march on and you will be rewarded with  total wilderness and solitude.  The parts around the former Roman Road of Ryknild Street were especially quiet.

Guide Dog in Training Abi had a wild time - 100s of dogs to play with, puddles to wallow and pools to clean off in.

Blackroot Bistro's excellent coffee and paninis meant that Mrs M and Son #1 had a day out worthy of the allowed "short journey for exercise" rule.

Other rules stopped me from having the usual post walk pint. For tomorrow, I have a plan.

Starting off amongst the crowds near Wyndley Pool

Wilderness of Rynkild Street

A typical information point for the ALC

Woodland on the way to Blackroot Pool

Blackroot Pool

 

01/11/20 - The Adlestrop Amble

Number of caches - 11
First Cache

Could be the last Geocaching round for a while, as we enter 2nd Lockdown.  The rules are unclear.  I can exercise outside and I can go for a short drive.  There is no definition of what "short drive" mean and if this goes on for three months like last time, I am sure I will be testing any limits.

Having woken in Chipping Norton's Premier Inn, I decide to get some fresh air on the way home.  Seeing a short 4 mile round of wrighty Geocaches was enough to make my mind up.

Adlestrop it is - with parking at the Village Hall, just over the road from the country's most famous bus stop.

Why so famous?

WW1 Poem on the Bench

I'm sure I found a Geocache there many years ago.  Up in the rafters.

The walk is through autumnal woodland and onto Adlestrop Hill, where there are uninterrupted views across the Cotswolds.  The caches were nicely hidden and I appear to have come back with 3 TBs.  I doubt whether I need to notify the owners that it may be more than 2 weeks before I drop them off.  They are probably in lock down too.

Leaves, hiding the muddy perils

Views under Ominous Skies.

A nice circuit on a some previously undiscovered paths.  What Geocaching is all about.  Thanks again, wrighty.