This walk was the reverse of a walk I did two months ago, which I put on my web site – http://www.petes-walks.co.uk/Chiltern%20Hills/Wendover%20Woods/Wendover%20Woods%201.htm. It took about 4 hours to do the approximately 12.6 miles, starting at 9.40.
I saw (and heard!) some Jays as I walked back down the drive to the car park. I then followed a path through the woods that soon joined the drive to a house and went through it’s garden to reach a road at Aston Hill. I crossed over and followed a farm drive opposite, soon glimpsing a Muntjac Deer in the Mountain Biking Area on my left. At the farm I followed a path through the trees that soon headed steeply downhill, with a field just to my left. Across a road I followed a path along the edge of an arable field, then turned right on a byway running between hedges.
I crossed a lane, and continued past a couple of cottages. I soon turned left on another byway, with paddocks beyond the hedges either side. The byway gradually curved to the right and came to a junction with another byway at the foot of a steep wooded hillside. I turned right, and followed the rising track through Grove Wood, quite steep in places. At the top of the hill I followed a private drive a few hundred yards to reach Hastoe, Hertfordshire’s highest hamlet (nice alliteration there, don’t you think!).
I turned left and followed a lane through the tiny hamlet. I went left at a junction, then turned right on a path through Tring Park – much of this was along King Charles Ride, along the top of the Chiltern escarpment above Tring. It took me to Wigginton, where I partly retraced my route through the village from two days ago before turning right along the main road. I then turned right on to the route of the Chiltern Way, crossing an empty pasture and then following a line of gorse bushes and then a belt of trees, which marked th course of Grim’s Ditch which I’d be following for 3-4 miles.
I went through a small wood and crossed a lane. I followed a path on the same line through another wood, and on across a stubble field to reach another belt of trees. At the end of the trees I left the Chiltern Way, going a few yards right and then turning left again. A short section along a narrow lane then followed – it was surprisingly busy with at least 6 cars passing me in a short space of time. The lane ended at a T-junction, where I carried on ahead on a footpath, still on the line of Grim’s Ditch, or a little to the left of it.
I carried on through woods for some distance, then took a short path on my right to reach another section of the Ridgeway. I followed this downhill through the woods, and then turned right along Hogtrough Lane (basically a long farm drive – as well as the Ridgeway, it’s part of the Chiltern Link which I walked a couple of years or so ago). At the end I turned right, and soon turned right again into Hale Lane (the Hale is the name of an attractive valley here, ringed by wooded slopes). After about half a mile, I took a track on the left that rose steadily back into the woods. At a junction I turned left, the path gradualy curving round to the right as it neared the top of Boddington Hill. Is topped for my lunch on a bench here, with a nice view out over Wendover and the Vale of Aylesbury. I then continued along the path, meeting hordes of people with children and dogs as I got back to the car park in the middle of Wendover Woods.