🥾 Walk 279 - Watlington Hill and the Ridgeway

On the first Sunday in June, we went on the first walk led for us by Julie (and her dog Wellington). Twelve of us (including a couple of newcomers and a member of the BWs we'd not seen for years) gathered at the NT car park at the top of Watlington Hill for a rollercoaster walk. Well, that is how my fitness tracker described it afterwards. It was quite hilly, with 1,230 feet of ascent in total.

Anyway, we started off with a descent, heading south-west down Watlington Hill. At the bottom, we followed a road for a short while before joining The Ridgeway (or Swan's Way, as this part of the long distance path is called).

The Ridgeway took a sharp left at North Farm and began a steep incline up to Dean Wood before heading down to Swyncombe, where we stopped by the ancient little church of St Botolph. This is where we left The Ridgeway and joined the Chiltern Way, heading uphill to Cookley Green. On the way we encountered two lambs on the path, gazing at us curiously, not quite sure what to do next, but they finally decided to run off as we got closer.

Passing through Cookley Green, we headed down and then up to Russell's Water, where we stopped by the village pond to have our picnic lunch. The large pond had an elaborate duck house, complete with veranda, and some pretty large fish (probably some variety of carp). These competed fiercely with the ducks (and each other) for some breadcrumbs we threw in after eating our sandwiches. It was quite a sight.

After lunch we continued our walk, heading down to Pishill, which included a stop at The Crown Inn - a picturesque 15th century coaching inn. The sky was beginning to darken, but the rain predicted for late afternoon hadn't yet arrived, so we sat in the pub's garden with our drinks.

Feeling refreshed, we began the steep ascent up to Hollandridge Farm, followed by the slightly gentler ascent through Fire Wood to Christmas Common. From here there was a short stretch of road walking, back to the car park. See our route on Google Maps.

This energetic walk had much variety in its terrain, with open fields and different types of woodland, as well as some pretty villages on the way. We were lucky with the weather too. The temperature was warm but not too hot for walking, and it didn't rain until after the walk had finished.

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