Dan, from the Berkshire Walkers 20s & 30s group had recently led a nine mile walk for his group around the Christmas Common area of South Oxfordshire. The walk was well liked so he volunteered to lead it again for our group, which was very kind of him.
The forecast wasn't good for Sunday 13th October, and it wasn't wrong. As I drove across Reading and then into Oxfordshire on my way to Christmas Common, the rain continued to get heavier and was absolutely chucking it down when I arrived. There didn't seem to be many other cars in the car park - I had got there a little early - so I sat in the car hoping that the rain would ease up. It didn't!
Surprisingly we had seven people turn up to this walk, despite the terrible weather. Suitably clad in waterproof jackets and over-trousers, we headed off easterly from the car park. We passed through Shotridge Wood and Blackmoor Wood, which gave us some shelter, before emerging into the open fields near Ibstone Common. Here there was an impressive view of the trees in the distance disappearing into low cloud.
We turned north and headed across open fields toward Wellground Farm and Hailey Wood, where we began to get close the the M40 motorway. We turned north-westerly and found somewhere to stop for lunch in the woods. The trees were saturated by now and gave little shelter from the rain so some skill was involved in keeping sandwiches dry while trying to eat them.
Coming out of the woods on a high ridge running parallel to the M40, the rain began to ease off but we felt the effect of the cold wind on our wet clothes. Brrr! We then joined an established path called Swan's Way. This is part of the Icknield Way, an ancient track that goes from Wiltshire to Norfolk. We followed this for a couple of miles until it intersected with the Oxfordshire Way, which we then followed back to Christmas Common.
Three of our party headed straight back to the car park while the remaining four visited the local pub, which had a quarry-tiled floor and an open fire. Ideal for wet ramblers!
I recorded most of the route on my GPS but the first part is missing due to the receiver struggling to acquire any satellites in the very heavy rain. The very last part of the route is also missing as I switched off the receiver when we got to the pub. See the recorded part of our route on Bing Maps.
Due to the poor light and the chance of water damage to my camera, I didn't take any photographs on this walk. Sorry!
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