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At the start of our day we were all surprised how chilly it was, given that I was expecting to need sun cream. However as you can see from the photos we had a beautiful sunny day that quickly warmed up.
The route took us from Nuffield Place National Trust, past the fencing of Her Majesty’s Prison, Huntercombe, passing through woods that were still pretty muddy even in midsummer before opening out on to downland.
The reccy in early December hadn’t been as muddy as now; we were fine on the outward section but some of us did get stuck on the return. However we were rescued by our stalwart walkers who did a fantastic job!
All in all it was a lovely day with fantastic views over the Ridgeway as we climbed; as you see the vegetation was flourishing on the footpaths; we felt like explorers battling through jungle.
Our lunch stop had no sounds except the occasional sheep and the skylarks singing- just perfect.
The final treat was to have a red kite swoop to pick up a left over sandwich in the car park about a metre from our vehicle; the kind of display normally done by trained falcons.
We are really grateful to Annette Weiss of Chilterns AONB for helping to plan and jointly lead this ramble.
Lucy Savage
