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