Pete's Walks - The Chiltern Chain Walk (2)
Post-walk Comments
This was a rather odd long-distance walk for me. I chose to do the 20 walks in a rather random order rather than sequentially, and interspersed them with many other walks. So I didn't get any real feeling of gradually moving from A to B and heading towards a fixed target, although I was conscious of gradually ticking off a list of 20 walks.
Although many sections of the walks were on paths that I frequently use as parts of other routes, there were other sections that I'd not walked since I first did the Chiltern Chain Walk four years ago. It was particularly enjoyable walking these less familiar paths again, and interesting to re-visit parts of the Chilterns that I'd not been to for some years.
The middle section of Studham Common (Walk 2)
I enjoyed all the walks, and I never felt that I was missing out by doing the walk in the opposite direction. There were a few walks where I appreciated why I'd specified the other direction as being best (for instance to avoid a very steep hill on Walk 11), but generally the walks were of similar quality whether walked clockwise or anti-clockwise.
I originally intended only doing these walks on fine days, doing other walks on weekends when the skies were overcast - I thought photographs showing blue skies would give the most favourable impression of the Chiltern Chain Walk. However, 2012 and the start of 2013 were so poor weather-wise that I soon had to give up on that idea! So unfortunately many of the photographs were taken in dull and overcast conditions, and they therefore don't really do the walks full justice.