It all starts from the car park at the rugby club on Therfield Heath. This already has a place in family folklore since Therfield Heath was the scene of Helen's last orienteering race before James was born. This was a night event on 8th November 1997, and given James was born on 3rd December you can imagine that she didn't go round too fast. And then we returned for an urban race around Royston in 2019 and she felt so ill she went home without running.
But today she was OK so we jogged into Royston in search of the Roy Stone that neither of us even knew existed before this point, even though I had a control next to it at the race in 2019. After the mandatory photos, much to the amusement of the workers relaying the adjacent pavement, we set off up the hill back the way we had come.
I checked my watch as we turned left off the main road and found I had forgotten to start it, so I failed to record the first 500m of what is likely to be 600km. We pressed on at a steady pace onto Therfield Heath, soon passing the first kestrel. There was a brief debate over which of the many paths to follow, which was indicative of much to come, but after a tour of a corner of the Heath the route headed west along the ridge. This provides good views over the golf course and then north and east into the wide expanses of East Anglia. The large stately home on a distant hill turned out to be Wimpole Hall when I got home and looked it up.
A brief section through woods led to an open grassy spur that provided good photo opportunities. The golf course gave way to racehorse gallops and Helen set a brisk pace. Soon we reached the end of the Heath and turned south through a farmyard and out into open countryside. This provided a first real opportunity to play with my new camera in an attempt to take impressive photographs without just setting it to auto and pressing the shutter button at random. A herd of deer on the distant hill was a good start, and then there were various views of ploughed fields with interesting cloud formations. The results turned out to be OK, but several shots which should have been good were ruined by me failing to spot that I had somehow knocked the exposure compensation dial so everything was a bit overexposed.
The first real climb of the trip was up through a wooded valley and then we emerged into the village of Therfield. The signs were adamant that you turned left through an area of overgrown earthworks, so we did. The path then led into the back garden of a large house and down their front drive, but apparently this was correct. We got a first look at the rather nice village green and surrounding houses, and then doubled back very sharply to reach the church of St Mary the Virgin, soon followed by St Faith in Kelshall. It turns out there are a lot of churches in this part of Hertfordshire.
There are even more horses and the path headed through yet another area of stables, fenced paddocks and dressage arenas before emerging at a field edge. The map reckoned you needed to go diagonally across the field. We both reckoned this was a pretty stupid idea since we didn't want to be the first people heading into the deep mud on the newly ploughed field. So instead we followed the field edge and finally found a muddy track that seemed to be going in the correct direction. At this point Helen retrieved a large horseshoe from the mud and decided this was what was needed as a memento of the day, especially as her sherpa could carry it in his rucksack. The end was now in sight with Sandon Church appearing across the field, or at least the end of the first half of the first leg.
All Saints provided yet another photo opportunity and then it was through the gate and onto the village green, complete with village sign, duckpond (ducks not provided on this occasion) and a convenient bench for a snack. Five minutes after setting off again Helen worked out she hadn't restarted her watch. We had a short stretch of road and then picked up the Icknield Way for a long flat section of fields and scattered woodland. Red kites appeared regularly, and at one point I am convinced I heard a raven calling from a tree just ahead, but we didn't manage to see it.
The path returned us to Therfield and there was another chance to admire the range of houses along Police Row and around the village green. A right turn at the Fox and Duck and we were really on the home stretch with just four kilometres gently downhill to Royston. Helen pronounced herself less than enthusiastic about having this much to go, but it passed easily enough. The Icknield Way finally emerged onto Therfield Heath and I recognised one of the signs we had been confused by nearly four hours earlier.
There was just an easy downhill run left back to the car and Leg 1 was done. Helen decided she needed to buy the guidebook, since it had proved a little difficult to zoom the maps on her Kindle version. A garage on the way home provided a celebratory chicken sandwich (to share) plus a surprisingly good can of sparkling rhubarb and apple juice. Helen settled for Sprite and resolved to take lunch with us next time.
