Second day ...

Today looked like being a glorious day as the sun shone through my bedroom window. I had a long'ish day ahead of me, nearly 19 miles, and was being collected at the end by one of my daughters, who as she lives in Reading had been convinced she needed to put me up for the night. After a large breakfast I was away by 9am. Weather was pretty much perfect with a completely blue sky as I left Wendover and crossed an empty A413 (well it was early on a Sunday).



There's a bit of a climb up to Coombe Hill, and I paused half way up to grab the first of many geocaches that I would find along the way. On the top of Coombe Hill there's an imposing memorial to the Boer War, built in 1904.





Also here I met the first of the hordes of dog walkers and others out sampling the lovely weather. As someone who generally craves solitude when walking it wasn't my idea of an ideal day and secretly I was praying for a return of the rain to help drive them all away.

Another of the many signposts evident along the route.



The walk goes through Chequers which is quite imposing, and you have to smile as there are some seriously impressive CCTV systems around, wonder why!



What was noticeable now was the number of Red Kites flying around, they seemed everywhere but my puny camera wasn't good enough to get any decent photos of them.

Time for a rest!



The end of today was probably the most boring part of the route. From Chinnor to the point where I was to be collected, it's around a 7 mile slog that seems pretty much straight, and was probably also the wettest part I'd encountered so far. All made worse by the fact the route at this point is 'off the ridge', which was tantalising close and about half a mile South of me, oh how I longer to be up there instead. It was here I saw ahead of me a walker with a huge pack, god knows what he was carrying, and as I passed him it was clear he was struggling under the load. I never saw him again ... :-) Arrived at the pick up point at around 3.30 pm with damp feet, having had no option but to wade a flooded part of the track about an hour ago, although my tight fitting gaiters had kept out the worst of the water. Hoping for good weather tomorrow but after two dry days I'm not hopeful.