In a parallel universe today would have been the third time that Helen had organised the British Schools Orienteering Championships. Cassiobury Park, Watford, was in 1999 and we have four legs to go before we get there. Wormley Woods was in 2010, and should have been today as well, and that will be another three or four legs later. Before we set off we both had to finish a few rounds of the WOC99 Orienteering Unlocked event. This has been renamed from Lockdown Orienteering just in time for lockdown to start again. Helen spent quite a long time running virtually round Glen Afric in Catching Features, and I spent slightly less time doing the same, as well as navigating round a maze and trying to work out which blurry photo was the correct boulder in the Photo-O round. The results system is another Maprunner creation.
The weather forecast had looked awful for the weekend, but things gradually improved and it seemed that later on Sunday might not be too bad. Catching Features filled enough time to allow the weather to clear a bit and it looked like we shouldn't get too wet so we decided to risk it. We needed a short diversion since what used to be the M10 was closed, so we ended up going the back way in to Hemel Hempstead. There was quite a lot of standing water on the roads, and we splashed through a big puddle at Water End. I mentally decided that the red kites we saw as we got to Great Gaddesden didn't count. Surprisingly, I didn't see another one until just before Tring.
We parked by the school and set off up the first hill of the day towards the Buddhist Monastery at the top of the ridge. The main building is somewhat obscured by hedges and building works, but we passed someone who we assumed was a resident dressed in flowing white robes and black wellingtons. Somehow he had escaped the mud and puddles that now filled what used to be the old road to Hudnall. A large turkey farm was a bit of a surprise. Turning off the old road we set out across another enormous ploughed field with a vaguely trampled line going in the expected direction.
Eventually we emerged onto the road at Little Gaddesden. Most of the village was further along to the right, but we crossed between the houses and entered the Ashridge Estate. Much of the rest of the day would be on the Estate, and this was by far the most wooded leg we had done so far, and as far as I can see will remain so until the end. The path to Golden Valley had a sign advertising a detour to avoid a steep muddy path so we set off on a contouring route. This met the main path almost immediately, at which point it doubled back to almost where we had started. At least we got to see the flint wall along the path that was being repaired, which was apparently 200 years old.
The signage at this point was somewhat lacking, but we headed in what seemed to be roughly the right direction up the parkland of Golden Valley, which is yet another Capability Brown production. Two great spotted woodpeckers flew noisily across in front of us. These were the highlight of what turned out to be a rather disappointing day from the avian point of view.
Coming out of the trees we crossed in front of Ashridge House, skirted the golf course and set off down the avenue that leads from the house all the way to the Bridgewater Monument over two kilometres away. The sun was now out and glinted off the green of the funerary urn on top of the 33m column. Standard historical facts include that it was built in 1832 in memory of Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, who was known as the Canal Duke and the Father of Inland Navigation. Less-known facts are quite how visible it is from a long way away. The full column is in view from the main house to the east, and the top of the monument emerges above the trees and is visible from many points in the Bulbourne Valley to the west, as we were about to find out.
It was a long straight muddy run along the edge of the Ashridge East map. We then skirted the ha-ha to avoid the large puddle in the bottom, crossed the road and started along Monument Drive on the Ashridge North map. There were National Trust signs at the junction saying that all the car parks were full, and indeed the drive was littered with cars all the way along. The small car park halfway along was completely full of caravans and food tents for whatever film was being shot in the woods. At this point we were only about 50 metres from Buckinghamshire. The county boundary runs just to the north of Monument Drive and passes through the large pond in the woods just before the monument.
Helen decided to make use of the facilities at the National Trust Visitor Centre and I took yet more photos of the monument in bright sunlight. The Visitor Centre is at about 220m above sea level, and the base of the monument probably one or two metres higher on the grassy hill-top. This is the highest point on the Hertfordshire Way. Very little of Hertfordshire is over 200 metres. There is this small area in Ashridge, and a slightly larger area south of Tring where the top of the ridge running round to Wendover Woods gets to a full 245m on the county boundary near Hastoe.
There seemed to be people everywhere you looked so we passed up the opportunity of something from the ice cream van (this is the middle of November remember) and instead headed down the steep path to Aldbury. Even this path was busy with walkers, including three people who passed us going up hill carrying pints of beer in plastic glasses. These turned out to have come from the pub on the village green which was overrun with people and cars, much to Helen's annoyance. Rather than join them we kept on past the stocks and pond and entered the churchyard of St John the Baptist. The monument stood out above the trees on top of the ridge behind the church tower.
The final section to Tring station included part of The Ridgeway which clearly has more money to spend on signposting than any of the other routes we had seen so far. Helen walked all of this in a week in 2016 so she had already done this bit, as well as the short section north up to Ivinghoe Beacon where it ends. Tring station itself is a very large car park next to the West Coast Main Line in a field in the middle of nowhere, and there is certainly no sign of Tring itself. We had reached the furthest point west on the Hertfordshire Way but it is slightly strange place.
Doubling back we set off through fields with views of red kites and a monument and soon got to the bottom of the ridge again. The steep climb was made easier by admiring the house and walled garden we were passing and then we were at the top and back into familiar orienteering terrain. This is far enough from the Visitor Centre that not many people make it, so it was much more peaceful. We managed a good pace despite the extensive mud and puddles that made it quite tiring going. Across the road and we were back in Ashridge East and I could check the map to see what sort of updates will be needed for the event planned for next February. The bad news was that the bramble seemed to have had a massive growth spurt so what used to be nice runnable white forest will be a lot less pleasant next time.
We eventually found a field to sit in for a quick snack, and pretty soon after that got to the Frithsden Beeches map. We had both orienteered here at an event on 31st December 1989, a mere 31 years ago, and I just happened to have the map with me. The Brown course that day was 8.1km with 220m of climb. I had done 57.00 and Helen did 69.48. There had been a bit of vegetation growth in 31 years, and the wide rides now had quite a lot of gorse, but the contours and main path network were still OK, and you could probably just about use the same map today. There were views of Berkhamsted on a hill off to right and then we go to the World War I troop training trenches. Just past the noticeboard I ventured off the path to find a large depression that had been a control site 31 years earlier. Then it was shown on the edge of rough open. Today it was mature woodland, but the big depression was still there.
We came to a road bend on the edge of the woods and decided that was enough for today. We had done over 18 kilometres since leaving Great Gaddesden and this would be by far the longest section of the Hertfordshire Way we would manage in one day. We now only had a very short side of a triangle left to do to get back to the car, although it did include three more hills to climb. We set off back up through the woods and reached the War Memorial and car park which would be the next start point. The route crossed an empty golf course and then we passed down a narrow path between houses with very long front and back gardens before coming out onto the Fritshden East map.
It was all downhill through Fritshden, passing two more control sites that we had both first visited in 1989, and then all uphill on the other side of the road to reach the farm that we used for car parking at the last event here. This has a long driveway and the gate at the end had a pile of Amazon parcels next to it. Then it was downhill again towards Nettleden. This had obviously been an important route at some point in the past since it had very extensive brick and flint walls all along both sides of a deep cutting, as well as a large bridge taking another track overhead.
It started to rain as we reached Nettleden but we stopped to put on coats which caused it to stop almost straight away. A 50-metre detour allowed me to photograph St Lawrence Church. Then it was the final climb of the day. Looking back I counted four more alpacas amongst the sheep on the far hill. Unfortunately, we had seen a few more cows today, so alpacas are now only fourth in the list of large mammals seen on the Hertfordshire Way.
We got a helpful phone call from Peter to say that the two wheelbarrow wheels Helen was waiting for had been delivered, so we would now be able to start moving the compost at the allotment. The view of the Buddhist monastery was no better from this direction so we pressed on and headed back down the way we had come to Great Gaddesden and a final loop through the churchyard. It started raining as we reached the car, but it had been a much better day than we could have imagined when we set out. But you can't quite see the monument from here.
