We were so lucky for this walk. It was a sunny day with blue skies. It was even more appreciated because it was sandwiched between never ending rainy and miserable days. Eleven Polyramblers turned up for the walk (including me, the leader).
I warned people that there were no toilets at the outdoor café where we were stopping for lunch. But this was made up by at least eight open toilet buildings along the way. We did not visit them all. Enough about toilets!
For the 15th Polyramblers annual snow-walking weekend, we went to Bad Gastein, a spa town in the mountains in Austria. This year there were 12 of us including newbies Jackie C, Julie and Wendy (Christine Bignold’s daughter). We flew from Heathrow and Gatwick and met at Salzburg airport. We had a lovely train journey to Bad Gastein with magnificent scenery. But we should not have sat in the quiet carriage! We were told off twice for being too noisy. After a short walk to discover the town or to the nearest supermarket to buy shower gel, we had a very nice but enormous dinner at the Schafflinger Alm. How can they eat such huge portions?
On a bright, mild and dry day 18 Poly Ramblers set off on what purported to be a seven (later calculated to be eight) mile walk in the woodlands of Hertfordshire. We quickly reached Brickendon, one of the most haunted places in Hertfordshire, where we briefly visited the Holy Cross chapel built in 1932 in Tudor style with a fine wooden beamed interior.
Eleven hardy walkers arrived at Chorleywood Station on a very cold and wet morning. After the safety briefing, we started the walk but stopped again within a few minutes for a toilet break in a local cafe. The reason being that the railway station facilities were all locked (the station was unmanned).
Then our walk took us through Carpenters Wood with its really lovely autumn colours and a carpet of fallen leaves. One of the polyramblers decided to turn back at this point because the path was very slippery in places. The rest of us continued on to Chenies, along a tarmac path past Mountwood Farm and then took a steep decent down to the watercress beds. After this, we climbed a steep hill up to the Church and to the pub ‘The Cock Inn’.
Here we had our lunch, some taking shelter from the cold in the Church (the radiators were on!) while others went for some food and a drink in the pub. After lunch, another polyrambler decided to call it a day. Then the remaining ten of us walked down to Sarratt Mills and on to Chorleywood Common after crossing the River Chess. We stopped to admire the Memorial tree and then headed back to the Station.
A few us decided to have tea and cake in a local cafe while the rest caught the train back to town.
This eight mile section of the Vanguard Way goes through an idyllic area of rolling countryside and small farms mostly in open countryside and pastures.
Nine Poly Ramblers undertook the complicated train and bus route to start section six of the Vanguard Way on the Uckfield road in the Wealden District East Sussex. The signage for the route had recently been renewed; it sadly did not prevent us from going in the wrong direction twice!
We were fortunate to have pleasant weather after a week of heavy rain as we made our way through pastures and woodland crossing the river Uck at intervals. We enjoyed exceptionally clear views en route.
We stopped for a picnic lunch at the Holy Trinity Church High Hurstwood, finding plenty of seating on the benches in the churchyard. The church was of an unusual design with its partly half-timbered porch tower and flat bellcote.
After a short lunch we resumed our route through woodland and fields passing pillboxes which had been hastily constructed during the second world war when the threat of invasion appeared very real. The name comes from their similarity in shape to boxes that used to be provided by pharmacists for medicinal pills.
We went through the arch under the East Croydon to Uckfield line, in our hurry to get to our destination in light and on time to catch the hourly bus, we took the wrong path across the next field and walked up a lane away from the route. Luckily a local person helpfully guided us back, we quickened our pace to make up for lost time. We walked along a lane (Nan Tucks Lane) following a track through trees, over a stream and continued into a junk filled farm yard (Scantlins Farm).
At a carved wooden Vanguard sign attached to a container we followed a broad track through trees to cross the picturesque Tickerage Mill at a weir with mill pond. We finished our route via allotments and passed the Village Hall to the Blackboys crossroads where section six ended. We were fifteen minutes early for the bus thanks to the brisk pace of our Poly Ramblers.
