Date: Sunday 27th May
Route: Ibstone Common to Turville, Fingest and back
Distance: 8 miles
When we first did this walk back in January (see here for some very frosty photographs), I described it as a fantastic walk that I knew we would do again, despite getting lost first time around.
Am happy to report that in the late May sunshine, it is still a fantastic walk, offering welcome shade from the sun through the multiple woodland sections, interspersed with lovely views and the two pretty villages of Turville (aka Dibley or the home of Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and Fingest (home of the Norman church in the photo above). The car journey from Ibstone Common to Mill End once you have finished the walk is pretty spectacular too.
Sadly, even though we were paying even closer attention to the walk instructions in the Pathfinder Chilterns & Thames Valley book, we still found them pretty confusing for the section back from Fingest and found it safest to refer to the map rather than the written instructions. This is the danger of guidebooks unfortunately - even if the book is 100% accurate when it is printed, gates can be replaced or taken down, stiles can be swapped for kissing gates or gaps in the hedge and paths can be re-routed. The path itself is pretty clear - straight on at all intersections once you are on the main path, then left at the arrow painted on a tree - but the instructions make reference to gates that we simply couldn't find and half-right turns that we couldn't place (maybe blame the heat?!). I hope that this will be rectified in the next version of the book (due in December, and a good possible Christmas present, I'm sure!).
So, once again I would recommend this walk but I would advise that you be prepared to ignore the instructions near the end - the scenery definitely makes up for the odd bit of confusion!
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