Walk 17/2008 – Bowbrickhill and Woburn

Sunday 27th July 2008

Our starting point was the Bedfordshire village of Bow Brickhill, which is situated on a sandy, high hill, and within a large coniferous area, the village also prides itself with some most delightful ‘chocolate box’ brick and stone cottages. Its pub was adequate in providing us with a welcome watering hole for the completion of our walk, but not the most picturesque and atmospheric of pubs we have visited over time.

We commenced our walk at the top of the hill amongst the pine woodland, with most of our tracks being sandy and passing through the trees. At the start we also had a glimpse of the beautiful Woburn golf course. This mostly flat shady wood walk was fortuitous for us as the weather was very hot and sunny.

Pretty early on in the walk Cathy was in need of a kindly Samaritan as she was soon stuck in the wood being tied to a felled tree branch [Ed – I didn’t know you were up for a bit of bondage!] by the vast loop in her shoe lace – a bit synonymous to Noddy’s boots! [Ed – a shoe fetish, eh!]

The next phase of our walk took us across remote farmland some parts obviously being actively farmed; we passed through rape fields recently swathed but appeared over ready for their harvest. Other sections of this remote farmland had been left unmanaged for years; we encompassed derelict barns and several avenues of nettles 3 foot high! – The walk was nicknamed ‘Nettle Paradise’ – I’m sure some of us were glad to be wearing long trousers despite the very hot weather. At this point in our day’s walking we also found ourselves accompanied by the surreal experience and sighting of a lonesome bagpiper. He serenaded us from the middle of a hilltop field and gave us a brilliant rendition of Scottish music, but as with all musicians who have daily practice, he also had to include his scales and arpeggios. [Ed – Yes, I remember you mentioning the arpeggios which I missed but I was looking for a woodpecker.] The tuneful bagpiper was the second surreal experience for us in one day as Chris had already entertained us with her story of having to let the Frog out in the morning! There is no spelling error here, yes, she had to find the frog in her home sitting room and let it out through the back door before departing for our group walk!! [Ed – His name was Maurice and Chris didn’t want him to get away.]

Back to our walk: – As we crossed some of the quiet meadowland we viewed an elegant buzzard, at first difficult to identify as it had to flap considerably until finding a thermal on which to glide gracefully. As we turned away from that delight we were then amused by a cheeky but beautiful tan cow, he suddenly poked his head out of his little shed, which was unobtrusively situated under a tree at Doltons Farm.

Lunch was again in pine woodland, Aspley wood, but it was not the most relaxing lunch experienced! Flies and spiders visited us in quantities due to the heat, but the landing of the red spider on Owen completely freaked out Carol! Aracnaphobia appeared to be a pretty commonplace problem amongst this particular group of walkers!

We had a very good day amongst attractive and interesting rural surroundings and with lots of tranquil meadlowland. We had fun with the many different and sometimes quirky experiences shared, and with welcomed new friends to today’s group (Carol and Cheryl).

Report – Cathy

Pictures – Alan

Walk rating – Very good

The walk starts off along a sandy track through the trees.

The golf course through which we walked was very attractive.

Looks like a bit of a route march going on here.

The picture postcard house.

Anybody fancy joining the French Foreign Legion?

We found quite a lot of nettles.

The lone piper and his wind bag.

A bit of pine woodland.

A bit of landscape.

Our lunch stop – in the shade note, as it was very hot.

There were not many hills but this was a bit of a steep bit.