After a short trip up the M1 we were quickly parking next to Flamstead church ready to set off. The church had changed since we were there four days earlier and was now fenced off behind metal mesh fencing and had acquired two portaloos and quite a lot of signage indicating that repairs were about to start and that lottery money was involved.
Turning left out of the village we started off down "Friendless Lane". On paper this was a leg that didn't really seem to have anything of particular interest ahead. But inevitably something would turn up, and the first thing was red kite number one. I resolved to count them but gave up when they started turning up five or six at a time later on. This was a good indication that we were really getting towards the Chilterns now.
The path to Markyate took the direct route straight across a very large ploughed field. We ran across a large re-entrant leading down to the River Ver on the right: the source of the Ver is marked on OS maps as being near Kensworth, just north of Markyate. This had been the target for James's D of E Bronze Expedition. The remainder of the day was to be full of Helen pointing out Scout and Guide huts and other places where she had started or finished D of E Expeditions or lost groups on the way.
Skylarks sang as we splashed through the mud and we were soon passing the allotments on the edge of Markyate before coming out on the road. The route went down to the main road and almost straight away turned left at The Sun Inn and headed back up the hill, allowing us to claim a lap of the fire station. We didn't get to see the church, which Helen knew was well outside the centre since it is next to the Scout Hut. There was a depressing reminder that Christmas was coming with one house already having a front garden full of decorations and lights, but the housing soon ended and we headed off into the farmland that was going to dominate the rest of the leg. A plane flew over and it became obvious that living on the flight path for planes leaving Luton was not ideal.
We ran around the edge of a lot of fields, past a lot of sheep and horses and several groups of walkers, and had soon ticked off a ring-necked parakeet (strangely absent from the leg around St Albans where we are normally overrun by them) as well as three alpacas behind a hedge that Helen wasn't quite tall enough to see over. The path then led past the front of Beechwood Park school. You can tell this is a long way from anywhere by the number of cars parked around it. There was certainly no prospect of getting there by any other means unless you happen to be running from Flamstead. The impressive main building lies in parkland laid out by Capability Brown in the middle of the 18th Century. We skirted round the edge of the extensive playing fields that he didn't know he was designing and passed an orienteering control on the fence. The school is one of the main contenders in the Hertfordshire Orienteering Club Youth League, should that ever happen again.
On the way up to Jockey End we discussed what wildlife we had seen so far and what we could expect in future. Helen's suggestion of badger seemed unlikely even if we had seen a sett already, but I thought a fox should be possible. We skirted the edge of Jockey End and turned off through yet more allotments and a sign proclaiming "Jim's Orchard". And at that point we found a fox, or at least a stuffed one, along with a whole menagerie of other soft toys and assorted other things decorating a small fenced garden at the end of the allotments. Skeleton in a bathtub, Wile E Coyote riding a bicycle chasing a chicken and with Zippy in a basket, garden gnomes, Mickey Mouse telephone, HSBC bank sign, plastic heron, wind vane with a tawny owl, all that and more were spread around and looking a little battered having obviously been there and exposed to the elements for some time.
The next field was neatly split in two and was full of sheep and turnips. An electric fence separated the muddy part of the field with a few turnips scattered around, from the sheep in amongst the green leaves of growing turnips and the purple and white turnips themselves most of which appeared to have been nibbled by sheep already. A large flock of starlings flew around as the sheep chased them, along with various other birds including two pied wagtails.
Yet more parkland and sheep waited around the next corner, and "The Hoo" became the latest house that Helen decided she could put up with living in. Past a small wood and suddenly we were looking down into the Gade Valley with Great Gaddesden right in front of us. Two red kites swooped backward and forward as we did the final descent, and then it was across the Dagnall Road, through the water meadows, over the footbridge, past ponds filled with watercress and moorhens and we had made it to Great Gaddesden. There was time for the now-traditional snack in the churchyard, this time the Church of St John the Baptist.
We headed south to pick up the Chiltern Way which would take us all the way back to Flamstead. More watercress growing in the valley, another footbridge, a nasty road crossing on a blind bend over what is here called the Leighton Buzzard Road, and we were in Gaddesden Estate. We started the climb up to the large house at Gaddesden Place with red kites all around circling up and down the slope. A heron flew off to watch us from a safe distance. This was obviously horse country and all of the gates had jumps next to them. Google Maps shows that there was a Riding for the Disabled centre just out of sight through the trees, as well as The Centre of Horseback Combat which will teach you horseback archery if you think that would come in useful at any time. We started finding "Park and Ride" signs at all the junctions, but the signs indicated that the ride involved horses rather than buses.
There was an even bigger complex of buildings around the main house at Home Farm, including a large water tower. Once you start noticing them you find there are still a lot of large water tanks spread around, even if they are no longer in use. The next field was full of sheep, red kites and pheasants. At the end of the track was yet another large house, Golden Parsonage, with an avenue of huge sweet chestnut trees in front of it.
We had now reached Gaddesden Row which required a 100m detour down the road to visit the Guide Hut. This was an old corrugated iron building which had previously been a church, but was now painted a striking dark green. More importantly it was another of those sites that Helen had used for D of E expeditions. Somehow Gaddesden Row also has its own school, even though it is little more than a few houses spaced out along a narrow road in the middle of nowhere.
The path went in and out of woodland, with fantastic views of autumn colours along the edges of the woods. There was quite a lot of storm damage evident, with many large branches down. We even found a large beech tree with its trunk out horizontal and all its roots on display. Somehow it was balancing on a really narrow section of trunk that was still upright. Just for a change two buzzards circled over the trees off to the left.
The final sheep of the day turned out to be black sheep. And then I spotted that there were also three alpacas as well. This makes alpacas the third most common large mammal we have seen so far, after horses and sheep but ahead of cows. Coming out of a small section of runnable beech woodland we finally got a glimpse of the spire of Flamstead Church on the horizon. All that was left was to run around a few more fields and across the top of a really muddy valley that led down to Trowley Bottom, which was a lot more scenic when we crossed it lower down on the previous leg.
We decided to opt for the Redbourn Road rather than the M1 to get home. This meant I could spot what I assume is the intended route for the Chiltern Way under Junction 9 which we had missed on the previous leg, although it still looked a bit of an afterthought. The road took us past many familiar sights and a little egret was standing in the River Ver exactly where we crossed the road on Saturday. I'm pretty sure we'll see a few more before we get back to Royston.
