Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

Sat 12 Jul “25. DH, RW, PCL, TO, DL, CH, JS, RC, DC, Scrumpy, Albus & Maisie

With the hottest temperatures of the year forecast this weekend I decided to bring forward our summer start time of 0830 to an even earlier 0800 this week to keep us out of the warmer parts of the day, and find a walk which would be predominantly in the shade. As such a good group of seven regulars were bolstered by the addition of the ‘home for a bit’ travelling Clackson’s in the form of first timer Robert and regular addition David, as we met under the shade of some large trees on the Pen Ridge road.

Once all the introductions were completed and with a good supply of hats and spare water on board we headed off road through the area colloquially known as ‘The Gallops’ and then straight on into the shade of the Stourhead woods. With the three dogs now off the lead Maisie shot ahead and was the first to arrive at a large stack of logs, just as a horse and rider appeared on the track from behind it. I don’t know who was most shocked, but the lady rider was certainly quickest to react crying out immediately’to get that dog on a lead’. Trevor did his best to get to Maisie quickly although I don’t think she was any real threat to horse or rider. The previous time we walked this route we turned to the right for a short distance before dropping down the hill but this time I opted to stay straight on to keep the distance down a little and the length of walk to around 90 minutes. The track was not so well walked and soon became single track as we quickly descended through a lot of ferns and other summer growth to a major track. The obvious route would have been to turn right and continue loosing height so It almost felt wrong to turn left and go uphill instead, however the track soon levelled out as we twisted and turned through the woods of Shooters Hill copse before coming out onto the road to Gasper.

Having more space to walk side by side again, as always the person walking next to you regularly changed and it was good to catch up on the many months of travels of Rob (who was actually joining the Walking Dead for his first time) and David’s options and aspiration following the completion of his master degree in engineering.

it was really warming up now and so the shade provided by the big trees was most welcome as there was very little breeze around. On the occasions where we entered a slight clearing the heat off of the road surface and the brigh sunshine caused our internal temperatures to rise rapidly. By the time we came to the hairpin bend and headed down the dead end road we were well past the half way point so w we it was time to take a well earned drinks stop in an area of shade and of course for Deryck to pass around his bag of lollies. I’m afraid that with my mind more on our old dog that other things i completely forgot about taking any photos during the walk, or even a group photo this week, although maybe Rob & David were quite happy not to be photographed with all the ‘old’ men. We set off again with a slight climb before the path dipped again as we contoured around Newpark wood, named after the farm a bit further down the western slopes of the Pen ridge woods. On occasions the trees cleared enough for us to get a bit of a view out to the west but most of the time we were grateful to remain under the canopy. We kept up a good pace and almost before we knew it we were at the bottom of the incline which would take us back up to the cars. After a brief stop to gather our breath we took off up the final slope knowing that a good breakfast was not too far away now.

We reached the top and exited onto the road which now had a lot more cars parked along it, just 1 hour and 31 minutes since we started, having covered 3.3 miles. Richard had already decided that with the village lunch later in the day he would give breakfast a miss, and I also took the same decision so I could get back and spend time with Sully, as he was really not coping well with the hot weather. The rest took the short drive back down the hill to the Hunters Lodge where they all enjoyed a good buffet breakfast.

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