Yep, you guessed it Phil's gone loopy again.
Last time (way back in October 2003, yikes!) I had managed to make it
as far as Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge at Chingford with it's
grandstand view over Epping Forest.
From here I went in the same direction as before wandering eastwards
to cross the Rangers Road to pass to the north of Buckhurst Hill.
Following the notes in the official guide became somewhat
problematical here as the Roebuck Hotel is no more, they are building
luxury hoses on its site. :-( But a few clues remaining and one or two
signs led me to the edge of some fields where there was evidence of
the fast approaching season of mists and mellow fruitfulness in
blackberries and under a hedge some fungi. After this brief pastoral
interlude I had to cross the central line and a housing estate to
discover yet another pub mentioned in the guide was now houses. :-((
Making my way over playing fields and a fishing lake I crossed the M11
and made my way by roads to the old heart of Chigwell Village passing
the impressive and still open Ye Olde Kings Head. A sign said that
the way went through the hedge here but it seemed to peter out in a
thicket. It too me two attempts to find the way out onto farm tracks
through fields of wheat and barley quietly rotting for want of good
harvesting weather.
Passing the waterworks I was presented with a problem. Waist deep
nettles and I was only wearing shorts. A solution was provided by
wearing my waterproof as trousers - it's a good job I have skinny
legs! Once past this problem I struck out across more playing fields
to head into Hainault Forest at first thronged with families enjoying
the late summer sunshine in the Country Park but I left them behind as
I passed into the trees and then as I stopped to munch a sandwich a
heavy shower of rain caught me. Not unexpected but I hadn't seen the
clouds coming because of the trees. The exit from the Country Park
passes through a golf course and then over another difficult to find
stile into more arable fields, wheat barley and maize growing here and
at least some of the wheat had been harvested.
Another Country Park at Havering was very quiet (perhaps all the
people had gone home when it started to rain) and I could marvel at
the avenue of Giant Redwood trees in peace. The guide says that there
are about a hundred of them, the second largest group in Britain. I
noted a few new plantings where there were gaps in the line. From
Havering, more correctly Havering-atte-Bower there is a long stretch
over fields far away from houses giving a real country feel to the
walk with views south across the Thames valley over to Kent in the
distance.
After this country stretch the LOOP heads back into suburbia alongside
the Ingrebourne River which it follows to the Thames. Just before five
on leaving the "country" I looked back along the path and caught a
glimpse of a roe buck, I was at the time all of fifty yards from a row
of semi-detached houses. A little further into the suburban sprawl the
river (here known as Carter's Brook - in reality just a stream) flows
through trees and there in the mud by the water was more evidence of
the deer in the form of hoof-prints in the mud.
A couple of km of edgy walking along the green space bounded by
housing estates (I put my binoculars and camera way in my pack) led to
Harold Hill where I nipped in the Co-Op to buy a bottle [1] to drink
when I got home.
Chingford to Harold Wood 26 km (16.5 miles) in a little over 7 hours.
Maximum altitude about 107 m asl.
I feel pretty stiff today, I must get more practice before I hit the
big hills in October.
http://www.p-t-cook.freeserve.co.uk/Aug04/
[1] South Eastern Aussie Merlot. Yummm!
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"