Sunday 2nd February was a sunny day with blue skies, fluffy white clouds and no sign of rain. Nineteen of us, including several newcomers, turned up in Hambleden to find that two other Ramblers groups were also doing walks from the same starting point. Parking was tricky!
We started off by climbing quite a steep hill heading east from Hambleden. This woodland path had 90m (300ft) of ascent in 750m (less than ½ mile) distance, which certainly got the cardiovascular system working!
Stopping for a breather at the top, we turned north past Hutton's Farm before descending 75m (250ft) to the little village of Pheasant's Hill. Then it was uphill again, through woodland, heading north-east to Parmoor, gaining 110m (360ft) of height en-route.
We had a short walk along Parmoor Lane and then we headed downhill again, through Hatchet Wood, loosing 100m (330ft) of height on the way to the village of Skirmett. Uphill again, to Combe Wood where we got a good view of the village of Fingest and its promise of tea and cake. (More about that later.)
On the way up, we passed another group of walkers coming down. They had already been to Fingest and had had tea and cake at the church. Downhill again, we joined the Chiltern Way and followed it to the village of Turville (where The Vicar of Dibley was filmed, along with various other TV programmes and films).
We stopped for our picnic lunch in a sloping field with the village at the bottom and Cobstone Windmill (as seen in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) at the top. After lunch we followed the Chiltern way to the next village of Fingest. Here we popped into St Bartholomew's church for tea, coffee and home-made cake.
The local church group had baked an impressive selection of delicious cakes and biscuits, which they were selling with a cup of tea or coffee, to raise money for maintaining their Norman church.
After our very pleasant tea break we continued with our walk. Guess what? Another hill! We ascended 80m (260ft) through Fingest Wood and then descended 90m (295ft) back into Skirmett. By now, some of us were beginning to feel like human yo-yos!
The rest of the walk was more-or-less due south along a gently descending path back to Hambleden, which took us past Arizona Farm, Colstrope Farm and Pheasant's Hill.
The route we took today was a figure-of-eight with Skirmett in the middle, and included a generous amount of hill climbing. I think we did about 380m (1250ft) of ascent and presumably the same amount of descent. I certainly feel no guilt about indulging in tea and cake on this journey. See our route on Bing Maps.
It's rare for our walks not to include a pub stop along the way. Although there was a choice of tea and cake at the church or a pint at the Chequers in Fingest, the whole group went for the tea and cake option. However, the walk ended right in front of the Stag and Huntsman, which had recently been renovated. It seemed rude not to pop in for a pint, and it was good to sit down after all that exercise!
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