Tuesday, January 6, 2009

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Rambling - May 2005 Report

8th May.. Sunshine and showers. Also cloudy, windy and cool. But pretty nice rambling, nonetheless. Twenty walkers set out on this 60th anniversary of VE-Day to see how far we might get before being soaked.

We left the village on School Path, and continued on to West Hagbourne, turning left on the footpath that leads to Upton. We bore right in Upton to Chilton Road which we followed to the top of Hagbourne Hill - the air was very clear and the views superb. Chilton Road (now the Icknield Way) continues west and so did we as far as the crossroad that connects Harwell with Chilton. We turned south, passed under the A34 and emerged just at the A4185. This road runs along the east side of the Harwell Laboratory and we followed it a short distance before turning into the Laboratory property.

We quickly came to our destination: the memorial marking the end of the former runway that had been used by glider pilots in 1944 to airlift troops and equipment to France at the beginning of the invasion. We made a brief stop but then continued on because although we were still dry, the clouds were becoming more and more threatening.

We back-tracked to Chilton and made our way on their quiet roads to pick up the footpath that passes through the Limetree Farm property. We followed this footpath which runs generally north-east beside the disused railway and takes us back to Upton. In Upton, we were again on quiet roads, this time to the footpath that starts at St. Mary's church. This footpath leads to Shovel Spring (meeting at School Path) and finally to home.

It was a slightly longer walk than usual. It was 'designed' to be 7.3 miles but one GPS user tells me it was 7.8 miles and one pedometer carrier insists that it was 8.5 miles. I'm staying out of the discussion. It took us just under three hours. Wet? Only slightly. One cloudburst brushed past us on the far side of Upton, but basically we missed all of the storms. However, we did see one beautiful and unusual rainbow.

Hope you can join us in June when there will be a Guest Leader.

Next Village Ramble:

Sunday, June 12th - 2:00pm - Meet at East Hagbourne Upper Cross

Contact John Jones 813326