A lovely sunny day with no other plans gave us the chance to tackle another of the further-afield walks in the Adventurous Pub Walks in the Chilterns book - this one based around Pitstone Hill.
Although the walk in the book started near Pitstone, that would have put the pub stop too close to the start, so we chose to start at Tring station, were the is allegedly some parking. It turns out that there are three staff/contractor space and two public spaces - all full. Luckily there was some on-road parking nearby.
The first stretch was along the Grand Union Canal. As usual, you descend from the road onto the towpath. With the leaves still on the trees, it was still quite shaded. I remarked that it felt like entering an alternative world - maybe lie something from His Dark Materials.
We then went across the railway and along a series of paths and drives to the side of Pitstone Hill and walked on a fairly level and slippery path along the fence parallel to the ridge. This eventually turned to ascend to the ridge. After a swift detour to the top to photograph Pitstone Windmill (apparently the oldest in the country and one of a very large number of windmills we visited with our boys), we found a nice spot surrounded by great Chiltern views to eat our picnic. It as almost warm enough not to need to wear a fleece. Not bad for November.
The route then followed the ridge (indeed The Ridgeway) to a stile where the bridleway turned into a footpath. A couple of cyclists were waiting to lift their bikes over the stile. I pointed out that cycling is not permitted on footpaths. 'Who said I was going to cycle?' said one of them. We walked along the path for while and and were soon caught up by the same two, peddling away. They passed us, but not before Rosie had insisted that we hold hands walk side-by-side....
We descended to Aldbury and The Valiant Trooper. This is a nice country pub that we'd previously visited with David and Alison. Today it was packed.... The bar was full of men in blazers who'd clearly been there since opening time and were singing rugby songs. It was warm enough for us to sit in the garden, but that too had another crowd shouting at each other from two feet away. My theory is that they'd all been to the local Remembrance Day service, and adjourned to the pub to fill the time before the rugby started. The Chiltern Ridgeway beer was excellent, but we didn't stick around. We could hear the garden conversation from some distance away.
The next stretch was towards and alongside a wood and then re-crossing the railway. It was around 2:30 at this point and we came across a man without a map who asked us the way to the monument - he meant the Bridgewater Monument that we visited a couple of weeks ago and had seen in the distance earlier in the walk. Rosie showed him the route on the O/S map and hinted that it was perhaps too far to go in the remaining daylight. However, he asked to photograph our map (an interesting idea) and went on his way. We hope he found his way there and back.
We then re-joined the Grand Union at Cow Roast Lock, which is the highest lock on the canal and so-named a a corruption of Cows Rest - where drovers rested their cattle en route to London. It was was a short walk along the canal to the car - but seemed longer than it was.
Although the walk in the book started near Pitstone, that would have put the pub stop too close to the start, so we chose to start at Tring station, were the is allegedly some parking. It turns out that there are three staff/contractor space and two public spaces - all full. Luckily there was some on-road parking nearby.
The first stretch was along the Grand Union Canal. As usual, you descend from the road onto the towpath. With the leaves still on the trees, it was still quite shaded. I remarked that it felt like entering an alternative world - maybe lie something from His Dark Materials.
We then went across the railway and along a series of paths and drives to the side of Pitstone Hill and walked on a fairly level and slippery path along the fence parallel to the ridge. This eventually turned to ascend to the ridge. After a swift detour to the top to photograph Pitstone Windmill (apparently the oldest in the country and one of a very large number of windmills we visited with our boys), we found a nice spot surrounded by great Chiltern views to eat our picnic. It as almost warm enough not to need to wear a fleece. Not bad for November.The route then followed the ridge (indeed The Ridgeway) to a stile where the bridleway turned into a footpath. A couple of cyclists were waiting to lift their bikes over the stile. I pointed out that cycling is not permitted on footpaths. 'Who said I was going to cycle?' said one of them. We walked along the path for while and and were soon caught up by the same two, peddling away. They passed us, but not before Rosie had insisted that we hold hands walk side-by-side....
We descended to Aldbury and The Valiant Trooper. This is a nice country pub that we'd previously visited with David and Alison. Today it was packed.... The bar was full of men in blazers who'd clearly been there since opening time and were singing rugby songs. It was warm enough for us to sit in the garden, but that too had another crowd shouting at each other from two feet away. My theory is that they'd all been to the local Remembrance Day service, and adjourned to the pub to fill the time before the rugby started. The Chiltern Ridgeway beer was excellent, but we didn't stick around. We could hear the garden conversation from some distance away.
We then re-joined the Grand Union at Cow Roast Lock, which is the highest lock on the canal and so-named a a corruption of Cows Rest - where drovers rested their cattle en route to London. It was was a short walk along the canal to the car - but seemed longer than it was.
Just for info, in case anyone else wants to do the walk starting at Tring station: There's a double-decker car park with 300 spaces at Tring station, so you won't have trouble parking. It's just the other side of the train tracks to the small drop-off car park mentioned here.
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