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| Radio controlled glider over Beacon Hill, Ivinghoe |
While the Chilterns are close, it still takes over half an hours driving to get there. as the road network is basically old estate roads, which don't deal with today's volumes of traffic well. I originally tried to do this walk on Saturday - big mistake. It's August; very good weather; school holidays; a weekend, and, because of the driving, getting to the start point at 10:30 meant that the all the car parks were full; there were hundreds of people about, and I just turned round and came back. Today, while still August, good weather, and school holidays, there were only half a dozen cars in the car park. The first section of my walk was comparatively deserted, with only a couple of people on it.
However, the entire walk was in a landscape that has been changed, managed, maintained, and manicured by humans for over 6000 years, and can hardly be called a natural landscape now. The entire walk was on well way marked paths; all the paths are clear, and well maintained, even to the extend of steps down on slopes. However, while there are hills in the area, including the one from which the photo was taken, they are not very steep - I reckon I climbed about 240 metres in all. So all in all, pretty easy walking; pretty easy navigation; and (especially on Beacon Hill) scores of people out on the route. Most of the walking was on chalk, which while not as hard on the feet as granite, it is still a lot tougher than peat. So pleasant enough but not what I would call proper walking.