Thursday 13th May   Aspley Heath -  5 miles led by Tony R 

We parked in the car park off Longslade Lane, 6 cars with a club member in each car as we are still not allowed to car share. The walk started in slight drizzle which soon abated. We walked eastwards past the dried up ponds to join the main drag just before Fullers Earth Lodge. Soon after this crossed the A5130 Newport Road and entered Aspley Wood. We continued along the well defined track with yellow flowering gorse on both sides. Just after the fenced in disused quarry we turned right to join the wide path along the ridge.

On the reccy walk we had stopped there for our coffee break but after due consideration we felt it was not very suitable so we continued to exit the wood almost in Woburn Sands. We again crossed the A5130 and also Church Road before walking along Hardwick Road which we crossed. We stopped to admire the marked out distance on Greg Rutherford's winning 2012 Olympic Games Long Jump. Here we stopped on several benches within Mowbury Green to enjoy our coffee break. After this we crossed the road to walk up Woodland Way past allotments to enter Wavenden Wood  

Tony P, Beryl, Bob, Penny & Hilary at the entrance to Wavenden Wood

 

After many twists and turns this path led out on to Church Road, Bow Brickhill which we crossed to walk along a wide path with golfers on each side. We had to stop here to don waterproofs as the rain started again. We turned left off this track to walk along a narrow path through the Duchess Course to cross the road onto the footpath which passes the newest course, the Marquess course. After a short distance we turned left and followed the path down to Longslade Lane which we crossed. The men found a gap in the fence to re-enter the woods and hence followed the path back to the car park. However the ladies found it difficult to climb the bank so walked along the lane to the car park entrance.

Track of walk, walked in anti-clockwise direction