3:05 pm: The finish line in Chorleywood.
After the last ‘excitement’ with the HS2 works, all went smoothly to plan: straight along Shire Lane, which is variously a road and a broad, woodland path. As it approaches Chorleywood, the path shows the signs of once having been a crudely metalled road. Then it begins to turn into a road as farms appear at the top, then cottages where the tarmac begins, then as it descends the village appears around it, and all the way, it marks the border of Hertfordshire to the east from Buckinghamshire to the west, even as the village grows around it.
So I followed the lane along the road, the path and the road again, down into Chorleywood, and as the railway bridge appeared at the bottom of the valley, I knew the end was, literally, in sight, and the last stroll down just seemed so ordinary as people were getting on with their own business as every day. I however had walked 170 miles to get to where I was, where I started.
I found in my walk parts of Hertfordshire I thought I knew but which were unfamiliar close to, and a county well worth embracing.
See: Hertfordshire Border Walk
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