# 🥾 Walk 508 - Fleet Pond and Pyestock Hill

Having diligently pre-walked each of the walks I've led this year, I led the walk on Sunday 3rd April  without first doing a recce. Due to time constraints I was unable to walk through the route beforehand, and in any case, it was a walk I knew well. However, the path from the station to Fleet Pond was closed due to maintenance, which cut off the starting and finishing legs of my planned route. Ooh err!

So we started by walking away from Fleet Pond and into town in order to approach the pond via an urban route. Once we were back on the intended route, we followed the path down the west side of the pond, stopping at one of the jetties to watch the ducks and geese squabbling amongst themselves for dominion over the pond.

![Standing on a jetty by Fleet Pond.](https://www.berksww.org.uk/scrapbooks/volume40/images/fleet_pond_jetty.jpg)

At the south of the pond, we then followed Fleet Brook - or Gelvert Stream as that section is also called. We crossed it at Gelvert bridge and continued to follow the stream until it reached the Basingstoke Canal. Here we followed the towpath towards Fleet, stopping at Pond Tail to cross into the Forest of Eversley, which confusingly is not near Eversley village.

Crossing heathland, we found a suitable spot for our picnic lunch. Although it was only 7 or 8 °C, the sun was out and the wind was low, so we didn't feel too cold. After lunch we crossed through the forest to Norris Hill, and after crossing the main road and then the canal, through Pyestock Hill. These woodland paths brought us back to Gelvert Bridge. Here we headed off north-east to form a figure-of-eight route.

![Ramblers and dog walkers mingling by Gelvert Bridge.](https://www.berksww.org.uk/scrapbooks/volume40/images/fleet_brook_bridge.jpg)

My original route would have brought us back to the station along the northern edge of Fleet Pond, but the path closure meant we needed to traverse the eastern, southern and western edges of the pond before retracing our outward diversion. I certainly felt under pressure while leading seventeen people on a route I was making up as I went along. A couple of wrong turnings added to the already extended mileage, but the varied scenery looked good in the sunny weather. See our route on Google Maps.

Although the last part of our walk was retracing our outward steps, things always look different when going the other way, and a few people at the back of the group got lost. I'm sorry to say I was unaware of this until someone (not the back-marker, who wasn't at the back) pointed out they were missing. Luckily they were found in a matter minutes. All in all, I have to say this wasn't my finest hour as a walk leader, but everyone was very understanding.

![Heathland on the edge of the Forest of Eversley.](https://www.berksww.org.uk/scrapbooks/volume40/images/forest_of_eversley_fleet.jpg)

*Thank you to Julia for providing the photo of us on the jetty.*

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