A pleasantly sunny day, but I overslept in the morning and then took a very leisurely trip to Northwood meaning I didn’t start walking until 3 o’clock in the afternoon. So I don’t expect to finish until about eight in the evening but thought that should be okay. The treck up to Northwood is a bit long but uneventful .
I bought lunch at the local Waitrose which cost £14 instead of what you might reasonably expect to be more like half of that. I sat on a seat right outside and ate an initial lunch before starting.
Turns out that when you press navigate on Outdooractive to start navigating a plan, it doesn’t! And you have to press start on a subsequent screen which I didn’t do. So the Outdooractive track is going to be about 550 m short of what it should be for the day. Runkeeper is working correctly though.
Once you get to the end of Kewferry Road, you have to enter a gated community on Bedford Road which is very exclusive.
As you enter Sandy Lodge golf course just by the side of the railway there’s a width restricted gate (got a picture) that is too narrow to walk-through so I had to get underneath it; which is ridiculous.
I had a general feeling that the route today seemed to be persistently and gently uphill all the way from the station. Also I had a kind of feeling that I had made a final turn to the right here somewhere and was starting the slow sweep across the top of town and back down to the river. But the uphill was annoying.
The path through Old Furze Field wood seems to have been made up with ash and cinders since I was here last and had made a very solid path. I wonder if this is where it was incredibly muddy last time? Its a long and quite steep climb up through the woods on that path. Its a lovely and large wood though, even if it takes a puff and blow to walk through it. I think I mentioned last time I came through here I hadn’t expected to find such a wonderful untouched woodland in London.
Just as an FYI, there’s a great seat just off the path at the top of the hill at Oxhey Wood. It is great for eating lunch.
When I got close to Hatch End railway, I decided to bail for today because I just wasn’t really feeling it. I’m tired, my feet hurt, and I just can’t see myself doing another 8 km considering I’ve only nearly done 10 km so I’m only halfway through. So Hatch End it is for today. And by the way, the road down to Hatch End main road is posh working class and quite Indian.
Hatch End has one of the poshest looking Wetherspoons ever called The Moon And Sixpence.
