A Country Hike

This weekend the sun ACTUALLY came out. So we decided to spend as much time as we could outside, in the sun, and out of the city. Leo had found a website that gave information about hiking trails around the UK, and became enamoured with hiking on the Ridgeway, one of the oldest paths in the world, which has been in use for around 5,000 years. The entire trail is 85 miles long, but we opted for a 6 mile hike between two towns, Princes Risborough and Wendover. The day before our hike we purchases a book about the Ridgeway, an ordnance map of the area, a compass, and some food. We tried to make it an early night (well Leo did, and I forced him to go to a club to hear some DJs, but then he made me stay out even later than we had anticipated), and we woke up around 9:45, packed our gear, and headed for the train; well, walked 15 minutes to the tube, rode that for about 20 minutes, got out to walk to the train station, and then we were off.

Only about 8 people got off the train with us at Princes Risborough, and luckily two of them were hiking on the Ridgeway as well, and had a much better book than ours, so we were able to get from the train station to the trail. They, however, headed west and we headed east. The trail took us through large open fields between farms, through national parks, through parking lots, and along the country estate of the Prime Minister (we got to play with his sheep). It was a bit strenuous at times, and really, really muddy...but we had a wonderful time! We had thought about going to Tring, which is about another 5 mile hike from Wendover, but once we got to Wendover at about 3:30, and sat down to have a pint at the first pub we spotted, we decided to save Tring for another weekend. We returned to the city exhausted, sore, and smiling.