I parked in the same spot in Stoke Row as I did on Monday, but today I walked south rather than north. It took about an hour and a quarter to drive there, the journey enlivend by numerous sightings of Red Kites. It was a really dark and grey morning as I started walking about 10.25am.
The first half of the walk was rather ‘bitty’ – lots of short footpaths, often across paddocks, and always seemingly close to some form of human habitation. Having said that, Checkendon was the only village that I touched on (nice church, and an attractive grand house). I had to alter my planned route at one point, as I’d misread the map and thought there was a public footpath where there wasn’t one. Eventually I crossed the A4074 main road and entered some woodland – most of the rest of the walk would be on woodland bridleways.
I headed back north on a road called Deadman’s Lane and then re-crossed the A4074. I then just carried on along a long series of bridleways, heading north-east for several miles. I eventually turned left at a crossing of bridleways, and started heading north-west through a wood, now heading back towards Stoke Row. I managed to get lost – I came to a complicated path junction which just did not seem to correspond to the map. After trying a couple of paths, neither of which were correct, I got the compass out at a path crossing, and took the path that was going almost in the direction I wanted. Unfortunately, after a quarter of a mile or so, it turned left, further away from the direction I wanted. So I ended up coming out of the wrong side of the wood, and had to take a dfferent route back to Stoke Row than I’d intended.
I only walked about 10 miles today, in about thre and a half hours. Again the paths were very muddy in places, but most of the walk would be fine on a nice warm day. It was colder today than Monday (2C), but the grey skies started to clear up after about 12 and it was quite sunny by the time I got back to Stoke Row.