Great Missenden to Berkhamsted
One of the many things I so enjoy about this endeavour is that our stately pace, of one-stage-per-month-more-or-less, means we see the way the landscape changes through the seasons. Growing up in the countryside and being an "outdoorsy" kind of boy, I used to be more aware of this change than I have been in the twenty or so years since I moved to London, but walking the Countryway is putting me back in touch with seasonality.
Taking place on 12 October, this walk felt very autumnal. We were treated to many displays of beautiful treescapes, one memorable line of trees on the crest of a ridge went from green to dark brown through every beautiful shade of yellow, orange and red as we looked from left to right. Fields which recently contained bumper crops of wheat and corn and rape were now the grim orange of glyphosphate - an unnatural colour when compared with the auburn of the trees nearby.
The mix of weather added to this, starting with a cool and damp mistiness which gave way in the mid-afternoon to glorious, still-warm sunshine.
Much like the last two stages, this was a walk through the Chilterns and, like the previous stage, it was without landmark or point of interest of any kind. The rolling hills and dry valleys of the Chilterns are beautiful and in some places even magical, though they lack the dramatic grandeur of the North Downs or the conspicuous wealth of the Thames Valley. This is a more understated wealth, an England of chocolate box villages, sprawling centuries-old homes pretending on their cast iron nameplates to be "cottages", woodland that appears to be natural and ancient but which is actually managed to within an inch of its life as shooting grounds for the would-be gentry.
The route took us over several ridges and down in to the valleys dividing them, and wasn't without disruption. What should have been a simple climb out of Great Missenden was disrupted by HS2 works, since the footpath used by the Countryway crosses the alignment of HS2 as it leaves the north portal of the Chilterns tunnel. This required a fun bit of wending our way through some bushes and meadow to connect up with another footpath going in the same direction, but signage and provision for walkers was very poor and we couldn't have carried on had we not all been fit and in possession of OS maps. Later in the walk, we stopped off at the Blue Ball Inn (no sniggering at the back), a magnificent country pub in a small hamlet that many villages and small towns would kill for. We sat outside in the sunshine, the ale and warmth making it harder and harder to get back up and keep going, but eventually we mustered the strength to carry on.
The Countryway itself ends at Ashley Green, a pretty village a few km outside Berkhamsted, but the walker from London must hike down in to Berkhamsted in order to get the train home. We did this, and were treated to another wonderful pub on the towpath: the Rising Sun. As dusk gathered, we left our canal-side picnic bench and walked to the station, missing the famous castle entirely. That will have to wait for a future free weekend - and a good excuse to return to the Rising Sun.