August Walk

On Friday 20 August 33 people set off from Frimley Lodge Park for a walk along the canal and across the heathlands.  It was a great day for a walk, cloudy but dry and a very pleasant temperature.

A press report said that we started by walking in the canal.  Untrue.  Neither by design nor misfortune did any of us go in the canal.  We walked along beside it, chatting to new acquaintance and to old, noting the mauve colours of loosestrife and water mints, and alarming the coots, ducks and moorhens, but not the heron feeding at the far side of one of the flashes – he (?she) regarded us disdainfully and continued to search for fish.

At Ash Vale we turned and walked east between the railway line and the army ranges where the heather stained the hillsides purple.  The walk had been advertised as just five miles so we did not go right up to Tunnel Hill, but crossed Mytchett Place Road and walked through the forest and heathland to a point where views open up across the Blackwater Valley to the hills of Farnborough.  Four of them – Farnborough Hill with the convent school displayed along its crest, St. Michael’s Abbey, Monks’ Hill and the hill where St. Peter’s church lies hidden behind trees.  Further away those who had the foresight to bring binoculars could see the wellingtonia trees at Minley Manor.

From there it was gently downhill all the way, through the woodlands and back to Frimley Lodge, ready for our lunches.