Thursday 28th October Aspley Heath walk

This walk was 6.5 miles in length, had 10 walkers and was led by Tony Roberts
Originally the walk on this date was to be led by Tony M but as he was unable to lead it Tony R led a different walk in Aspley Heath which was selected as it had sandy soil and was usually free from mud.
We started off from Longslade Lane car park. We were pleased to note that Pete Harding had managed to join us all the way from Co. Durham. We walked up to Sandy Lane and back to Longslade Lane before entering Bell's Copse. This led us to the edge of Woburn Golf Club which we skirted, finding a very bent tree next to the path where we posed for a photo.

John, Penny, Tony R, Hilary, Joan, Torunn, Cathy and Sue with Pete in front

We passed the club house and joined the bridleway, then passed Bow Brickhill church before turning left. Soon we stopped for a water break and immediately went through a gate into a "secret garden" where we had another photo. It was requested by Beryl that the walk should pass through this gate and surprise the walkers, however unfortunately Beryl was not able to join us for the event.

The walkers in the "secret garden" with the large white house in the background.

We walked through this garden down a lane into Bow Brickhill which we left up Church Road where a couple of horses overtook us on the hill. We soon left this road following the horses before finding a long log where we stopped for a coffee break.

Penny, Hilary, Joan, Tony R, Sue, Pete (standing), Torunn, Cathy and John on the log.

We followed the path past the ancient hill fort of Danesborough to the open fields around Edgewick Farm where we encountered a carved bench showing an owl with wings spread and a couple of mice on each end.

Group at the bench with the owl between Joan and Cathy

We carried on to reach Woburn Sands where we crossed the roads near the double roundabout before taking the path off Aspley Hill between the houses and the edge of the woods. We entered the woods looking for a pile of logs where we hoped to stop for a picnic. Unfortunately the logs seemed to have disappeared and we entered an area of low bushes near the quarry.

Looking for our picnic logs.

 Therefore we carried to the cross the main A5130 Woburn Road near Fuller's Earth Lodge. Soon we found a suitable log for our picnic.

Picnic stop.

  After refreshing ourselves we carried on towards the car park passing some dried up ponds on our right. here we stopped for our last photo before arriving back at our transport.

Group at the interpretation board explaining about the ponds.

Track of walk, walked in clockwise direction