What's that I can hear?

AR Walk 4: Halton Lane Parking to Wharf Road - 17 September 2014

Today's walk was the last of my walks along the Wendover Arm of the canal... 6 miles in total. I feel that I've started easy with nice pathways and no climbs! It's been a lovely start to my mission and I've enjoyed the peace and quiet of canal walking, interspersed with 'meetings' with dog walkers, runners and other walkers.

There is something quite disconcerting about walking alone and hearing gunshots. If I had sound on this blog you'd be hearing round after round of gunshots whilst looking at this photo. It really struck me how terrifying it must be for those living with that sound daily, but in situations where the shots are for real and not for practice.

The end of the walk provided some other, more pleasant, sounds. I love the noise of children playing and it was playtime at the local school when I took this picture. The ducks and swans were obviously so used the the screams and laughter coming from the other side of the canal and they didn't flinch at all!

From a geocaching perspective today was somewhat of a wipeout. My geocaching app wasn't working on my new phone; not sure if the issue is the app or the phone, but I couldn't get the information I needed to even look for anything. I will have to return to this stretch of the Aylesbury Ring another time to pick up the 7 caches along here.

Pip enjoyed the walk and spent the whole time fast asleep in his sling. However, this didn't end well for me as I seem to hav pulled an inner muscle in my chest whilst putting Pip on my bag last week and continued 'babywearing' is aggravating the muscle, so no more carrying for a week or so whilst I recover. I'm not sure how pushchair friendly the next section of the Aylesbury Ring is though...

Wild roses

Walk 4

Date: Wednesday 17 September 2014
From: Halton Lane
To: Wharf Road
Distance: 2.3m, 3.7km
Height Gain:
Route Description: Grand Union Canal Wendover Arm (disused) tow path
Duration: 1h30
Ave Speed:
Weather: Sunny, 20oC
Region: Buckinghamshire
Walking With: Pip
Path: Aylesbury Ring

Map: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zbgVN-iW56BQ.kaNBoT9lLlXY

Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness

AR Walk 3: Halton Lane Parking to Marl Copse - 8 September 2014

What a lovely morning! For most of this walk I had the first few lines of John Keats' poem 'To Autumn' going round my head (my English Lit teachers will be very happy!):

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

It was certainly a morning of mists and fruit as I walked along the canal and looked out over the Aylesbury Vale.

This was a very lush section of the canal with plenty of greenery overhanging the crystal clear water. And with the sunlight dappling through it was beautiful. There was plenty of evidence of the Rothschild era too, with ornate landing platforms and bridges.

My walk today took me through the village of Halton. This is a beautiful village nestled at the bottom of the Chiltern Hills. As well as being one of the 'best kept villages in Britain', it is also home to RAF Halton.


We had good fun caching today picking up three caches; Bridge Nano (GC3J7B7), AR18 Mandarin - Eye Level (GC4Q79R) and The wonderful story of Henry Sugar - A piece of Cake (GC47AWJ). We also collected the information for Church Micro 4515 Halton Village (GC4RN7P) but need to return another day to look for the actual cache. And a DNF was logged for AR17 Mandarin - Monopolistic Tendencies (GC4Q790); the cache site was covered in a multitude of prickles (blackberries, nettles etc) and I had nothing to protect my hands and arms, or Pip who was asleep on my back at the time! Today was a sad day too as my trusty geocaching aide died... My phone slipped out of my hand and landed glass side down on the stony path resulting in a spider's web of cracks all over the screen.

Walk 3

Date: Monday 8 September 2014
From: Halton Lane
To: Marl Copse
Distance: 2.7m, 4.3km
Height Gain:
Route Description: Grand Union Canal Wendover Arm (disused) tow path
Duration: 1h30
Ave Speed: 1.7mph
Weather: Sunny, 25oC
Region: Buckinghamshire
Walking With: Pip
Path: Aylesbury Ring

Map: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zbgVN-iW56BQ.kaNBoT9lLlXY

Slow down!

AR Walk 2: Stablebridge Road to just past Harebridge Road - 4 September 2014

It's very easy to rush everywhere and that's just what happened to me today. Ginger Nut had her first 'settling in' session at preschool so I planned to do my next walk with Pip. But it was a shorter session than normal and I was far from ready so in the end only ended up with an hour to walk. Parking in the same location as Walk 1 I was aiming to make it all the way to Halton village (4km/2.5m), picking up 6 geocaches along the way. I was seriously overambitious!

20 minutes in and I realised that I'd walked as far as my previous walk but I hadn't 'seen' anything because I'd got my head down and was walking quickly. I know that there are health benefits to walking briskly rather than dawdling, but I'm also aware that I want to enjoy these walks and take in the beauty around me. So I slowed down... not quite to toddler pace, but I made sure that I looked around me and stopped to appreciate God's amazing creation.


I saw a kingfisher teasingly darting ahead of me; each time I got close enough to take its picture it flew of again with a flash of iridescent blue.
I saw 'helicopters' in the trees and huge MOD signs as I passed by RAF Halton.
I saw the few remaining colours of summer; pinks and yellows and oranges.
I saw the first fruits of autumn starting to burst into fruity purple.
I saw a duck doing a poo in the water! (Ginger Nut would have appreciated that last observation!)
I saw leaves falling into the canal creating repetitions of circles working outwards.
I saw and I enjoyed.

Camouflage

Slowing down meant that I didn't achieve finding as many caches as I'd previously hoped, but AR14 Mandarin - Perry Mason investigates (GC4PZQ3) was a puzzle which I'd solved one evening whilst feeding Pip. There's something so satisfying about finding an answer and then actually finding the cache. AR16 Mandarin - Take a seat (GC4Q77V) was a traditional cache which was quickly found.
Our final walk was 3km/1.8m which really doesn't seem very far, but it was a good walk; I can feel it in my legs and shoulders! Hopefully over time I'll be able to build up my distances and when Ginger Nut has her usual 2 1/2 hours and I'm ready I should be able to go further.

Leaves on water

Walk Details
From: Stablebridge Road
To: Harebridge Road (just after)
Distance: 1.8m, 3km
Height Gain:
Route Description: Grand Union Canal Wendover Arm (disused) tow path
Duration: 1 hour
Ave Speed:
Region: Buckinghamshire
Walking With: Pip
Path: Aylesbury Ring

Map: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zbgVN-iW56BQ.kaNBoT9lLlXY

Toddler pace

AR Walk 1: Stablebridge Road to Harebridge Lane (or nearly!) - 1 September 2014

My aim to complete the Aylesbury Ring walk (32 miles) started today with a gentle stroll along the Grand Union Canal Wendover Arm (disused) as I had Ginger Nut with me as well as Pip and the legs of a 2 3/4 year old are not very long! We started our 2km (1.2m) walk at the carpark near Stablebridge and walked west towards Halton. I had no idea how far Ginger Nut would cope with and was very aware that we had to walk back the same distance to get back to the car, but she coped fine with 1 mile.

 One of the aims of the walk is for me to 'get healthy' after the birth of Pip back in February - it's hard to get out and exercise with a toddler and a baby so I'm hoping that walking will be good exercise and enjoyable. The second aim is to have a purpose to my walks; it'll be nice to get to the end of the Ring and know that I've achieved it. And finally I want to collect all the geocaches on the route! Steve laughs at my 'geekiness' in collecting caches, but I enjoy it and it gets me out and about enjoying nature. On this walk we found AR12 Mandarin - By the Canal (GC4PZN) and AR15 Mandarin - Three's a crowd (GC4Q77).

It took us nearly two hours to walk the mile as we kept stopping to feed stones to the (non-existant) ducks, make dinner, admire leaves and sticks, look for fish etc. Ginger Nut enjoys being out whatever the weather and is doing more and more creative play out and about. In these photos she's cooking dinner! Pip slept most of the walk this time, but I'm sure as he gets older he'll start to appreciate being out as well. I'll also make sure I get a few photos of him too...

Autumn colours are starting to show and I'm looking forward to seeing the changes in the seasons as I get out each week. Autumn has to be my favourite season though; I love the smells and the colours. Each week I'll try and get one photo of 'the season' so I can look back over this blog and see the seasons change.

Conkers growing on a Horse Chestnut tree

Autumn colours

Walk Details
From: Stablebridge Road
To: Harebridge Road (just before)
Distance: 1.2m, 2km
Height Gain:
Route Description: Grand Union Canal Wendover Arm (disused) tow path
Duration: 2 hours
Ave Speed:
Region: Buckinghamshire
Walking With: Ginger Nut and Pip
Path: Aylesbury Ring

Map: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zbgVN-iW56BQ.kaNBoT9lLlXY