I reached Pinner at 4:00 pm. Are there no independent cafés anywhere these days? Still no cherry-topped buns: muffins aplenty but no buns. This must be addressed urgently.
The route from Uxbridge lies across Uxbridge Common then it needs some good compass work. The route follows the River Pinn through Ickenham to Ruislip, which is complicated in this section; the Greenway route seeking out green footpaths threading amongst so much suburban streetscape, but to manage to pass through such a thickly urbanised area with so little on road, within woods an across heathland, is an achievement. A marked map and a magnifying lens got me through though.
Then it emerges at the Ruislip Lido, disappearing into the autumnal woods beside station (that of the Lido’s miniature railway, that is). This is why the route is rightly called the Greenway, or perhaps orange-tawny-and-brown-way at moment. Soon though, Middlesex being Middlesex, it emerges in a polite suburb, in the Eastcote or Pinner (indistinguishable), and tracks the Pin Brook tight between houses then suburban streets to Pinner station (a real station this time).
Ruislip Lido
This is of course Metro-Land: there are no “streets”, but “avenues”, “lanes”, “ways”, “closes” and “meadows” – anything to avoid the dread, urban word “street”.
Pinner is a good end for a day’s journey, at 20 miles from the starting point, and with an easy route to Croxley. However there is a long way to go, and that map is begging me to look further, across Pinner Park Farm (yes, a farm this deep in the suburbs), to an unpromising name: Headstone Lane. It is getting dark quickly though. I’ll see after I finish this cup of tea.
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I have reached Uxbridge town centre in time for a lunch stop (12:20). (Thanks to Costa for having wifi. Good coffee and muffins too.)
It was a mixed morning all along the lonely western edge of the county: up across the scoured moor (pouring with rain) between the great reservoirs and through the undeveloped, threatened places around Heathrow; then along the boundary fence of the monstrous airport itself. It is funny to think this was once a hamlet of a few houses called “Heath Row”, and that the corridor in heart of the airport still follows the hamlet’s main lane.
Then the route led me through Harmondsworth, a village which the airport’s owners want to demolish to expand their shop. I expect it is revenge for being forced to sell Gatwick by the monopolies commission. I passed the mediæval church and just out of sight of the mediæval Great Barn (“the Cathedral of Middlesex”), along an ancient footpath, all under threat. Then north of the doomed community I reached the M4 – there is a footbridge across it – to West Drayton, and immediately entered the edge of an unbroken metropolitan sprawl which reaches from here to Essex.
It looks unpromising to the east, and the tearing motorway concrete bodes ill, but in fact there are big green spaces there; the Middlesex meadows fighting against blind, bland urbanity even on the track of the road; sports fields and the lands still free around Heston, and the magnificent Osterley Park, and if Heston is now known for a concrete service station selling plastic-wrapped food, it was once a village famed for cherry-topped buns celebrated even beyond the county. I shall indulge in more fruit buns as I go, in their honour.
Please donate to the Stroke Association: click here.
Staines: a clean start on the bridge over the Thames, the southern border of Middlesex. Dawn. Dark. Just stopped raining blue sky.
(Already tired too: I got only a few hours’ sleep last night as it was a the Chairman’s charity quiz night. Still, at least our team came respectably above the middle of the board.)
Late autumn may be the worst time of the year for a day-long walk as the daylight is short, but on the other hand autumn is the loveliest time of the year for the colour and smells of the dim lit dawn and dusk. As long as I do not slip on leaves and plunge into the chill canals which I will be passing soon, nor get stuck fast in deep sloughs of mud, I should be all right.
There should be a “Middlesex” sign on this bridge. Can the townsfolk push for that? This is not some anonymous suburb, but Staines, the ancient bridging point, ad Pontem, gateway to the Capital County.
The first step though is north, along Bridge Street, then to try to find the way along the Wraysbury River. It is a bit disconcerting that I might get lost after just 200 yards. The brook though should take me onto Staines Moor and northwards.
Let’s go.
Please donate to the Stroke Association: click here.
Endless rows of identical semi-detached houses on roads laid down by compass and set-square built for the station – get up, get the train out, work, get the train home, sleep. The Victorians hated the new suburbs their industry created: the “Dark Suburbs”, a metaphor for a land separated from culture doomed to ignorance; but then those left in the towns would say that. What were these new, amorphous neighbourhoods obliterating the green fields? No seats of learning, no theatres, no ancient churches – all the necessities of civilisation – and only the means to get out.
That is not true though, is it? The rivers are still there, and the little countryside brooks, and village greens, if hemmed in by habitation, and the churches and the theatres which have sprung up. The pretty, well-tended park is not a gift of municipal benevolence, but a reserve surviving from what was always there. The foxes that run though the end of the garden did not come in from the countryside: it was the town which came into their countryside.
Create your walk through the suburban countryside: this is what the Middlesex Greenway is about, the walk which I will be reopening at the weekend, and there is room for many more explorations to find the suburban wild places.
The suburbs everywhere took a pattern from the planned development of “Metro-Land“, where the ideal was rus in urbe: the countryside in the town, to each house a preserved plot of meadow as its garden; and between the houses the countryside remains. Of those footpaths that strung the old villages together, many remain, but you have to go to have a look. If you are missing all this, you are missing the very point of the suburbs.
Switch off Googlemaps and satnavs and whatever: they are only interested in drivers and roads. Step into the open and breathe, and find those little paths that were here long before the encroaching suburb. Locked in a charging steel box you go from town to town, but a good map, a paper, Ordnance Survey map, shows the actual landscape, deep in the conurbations.
Even in unrelenting streetscape, there is variety and detail to be found on foot that a driver misses, and yes you can take joy in the presence of your fellow man, in all his quirky variety. Those once identical houses are not identical any more, after generations of individualisation. The bland conformity is found in cheap, concrete council estates – a pile of bricks, a slab of concrete, a square of scrub grass behind a two-foot plastic-coated chain-link fence – but even they have not blunted the human spirit and those who have bought their houses have shown that they can be made beautiful.
This is what the Middlesex Greenway explores in the most suburbanised county of them all; Middlesex. It finds the green western edge of the county by rivers and farms, but then plunges into the suburbs, finding the parks, the paths by hidden country streams, even farms in the conurbation, and many forgotten places. It then steps into the relentless streets but not to rush by, so they too can be appreciated in their variety, from the ground. There too are parks and pocket-parks known locally and there for you to walk. Eventually the Middlesex Greenway emerges by the River Lee, canalised for industry but where its banks are bursting with fragrant nature which will not submit to the slide-rule. All this is there to be found.
Good news from the Further Wild: on Saturday St Helena received its first ever scheduled commercial flight: an SA Airlink service from Johannesburg by way of Windhoek.
St Helena Airport has its problems: dangerous wind shear that can hurl an aeroplane off unexpectedly, and a runway that heads to the end of a cliff, but the flight landed safely and did not crash even once. More good news for the moment is that Atlantic Star are still looking to begin flights from Britain to St Helena by way of BathurstBanjul.
The island is small, just 47 square miles, but filled with tough walking routes and challenging, verdant mountains. It is a pocket paradise alone in the ocean: “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space”.
If it can ever become affordable, this little island might become a destination for the adventurous, as well as those seeking Napoleon’s last abode.
On Saturday 21 October 2017 I will be starting to walk the Middlesex Greenway, from Staines in the south-west to Enfield Lock in the north-east. Using Ordnance Survey’s on-line tools, I have calculated the distance at 45 miles, and how long it will take I cannot say, but I have set two weekends aside.
The intention is to re-open the route – to see that it is still walkable and if not then to do something about that, and to encourage others to walk the route or sections of the route, for health and, frankly, for the pure pleasure of it.
I am also looking to encourage donations to the Stroke Association: there is a link below for donations, and I will include a link on each post I make as I go along.
The route has not been walked in full, as far as I am aware, since Stephen Collins devised it and walked it 1990: he took two days, but then he was a keen and frequent hillwalker. I am also a keen hillwalker, but less frequent. I also have to make notes as I go and check that the path is still walkable. I have also possibly chosen a poor time of the year in terms of visibility: the daylight hours are short, though in all other respects an autumn walk is a sensual delight.
The Middlesex Greenway is, if it is still walkable, an ideal long-distance route for those of us in the suburbs: good hard work and running close to stations for getting there and getting home, while exploring lesser known parts of what we think are familiar places.
Actually, don’t just let me tell you: pull your boots on and explore it yourself .
I will post here as I go when I can, and I am told that it can also be followed on Twitter: @wildthing_uk
From the summit of Ben Macdhui I was not content to trudge back just the way I had come. However the first step is back down the last path to the summit. Somehow it seemed more rugged and ankle-churning on the way down (again, thank goodness for good boots with inflexible soles). I followed the mini-cairns back down to just above Lochan Buidhe, where paths diverge, and this time to the higher, left-hand path, heading north.
This looks to be a less frequented path. It runs just the west side of the ridge of the bealach on which I had seen the reindeer, and to the west of it there are fearsome scree slopes dropping away down into a deep, capacious, precipitous valley, called Lairig Ghru, which is a main north-south mountain pass through the Cairngorms: a path runs all through the pass that can be followed all the way from Aviemore to Braemar. The River Dee rises in the Pools of Dee in Lairig Ghru just below where I turned off from the lochan, though unseen.
The valley is a wonder, but completely unphotographable (though I tried). There are postcards in the shops of Aviemore showing Lairig Ghru under snow, which must be a spectacle.
The path leads above the valley for a couple of miles, and passes west of Stob Coire an t-Sneachda, and then begins to descend as the Ski Centre comes distantly into sight. It is a well defined path, along the face of the slope and with some quick declivities. The National Park authorities have been helpful in paving the path, that would otherwise be washed away by the burns running down the slopes, and bridging the main streams.
From here it is just a question of bashing on until I emerged in the car park (just as my family pulled into it). A good day all in all.
It is the final summit plateau alone in the air, and distant view of the mighty fells beyond which will stay with me.
Ben Macdhui, otherwise written ‘Ben Macdui’, is the second highest mountain in the British Isles, exceeded only by Ben Nevis, and the highest of the Cairngorm Mountains. In the first part I described the first part of the climb, to the summit of Cairn Gorm. The two peaks are joined by a high ridge, but a fair bit of climbing lied ahead and several miles to reach Ben Macdhui.
To the west of Cairngorm is a plunging cliff in the tight horseshoe of the Coire an t-Sneachda. To the south the land soon drops into the long, deep corrie around Loch Avon. The route toward Ben Macdhui heads west to the cliff-edge. The clifftop, incidentally, marks the border of Inverness-shire with Banffshire.
Path along the Stob Coire an t-Sneachda
The path looks precarious from a distance, as it follows the edge of the sheer cliff. In a strong wind or hail it could be very hazardous (and the first time I climbed Cairn Gorm I was battered by pea-sized hailstones in a fifty-knot wind), but this time it was a fine walk, climbing higher, and alternately dipping, in just light wind and rain, which frequently lifted, and the path is far enough from the cliff-edge to be comfortable.
However, when there is snow, it is another matter. Snow can build up on the cliff, and form cornices, which is to say snow ridges overhanging the void, and with the path invisible a walker can easily step trustingly on the snow cornice; effectively stepping out onto thin air.
Grazing reindeer
I went in August, so that danger was not there; there was still snow though, in a sheltered spot above Loch Avon. Within the snow patch, animals were gathered, of a type I had never expected to meeting in these slopes. Turning then from the corrie (Coire an t-Sneachda), the path leads south, along a broad ridge below which the land drops down increasingly steeply to Loch Avon.
Here was the enduring snow patch in the distance and within it many moving shapes. Binoculars showed me a distinctive shape I had not seen since a holiday in Norway many years ago – reindeer. The over a rise the rest of the herd appeared, unbothered by me nor by other walkers on the path. Reindeer have not been native to the Highlands since the Ice Age, but they were reintroduced in places in the 1950s, and now there is a thriving herd, unbothered by man, and not hunted.
Soon then as the other walkers gave up or disappeared, I came to my lunch spot: the azure water of Lochan Buidhe.
Lochan Buidhe
Lochan Buidhe is a broad, shallow lake and an important landmark on the path. From its foot runs a little stream, Fèith Buidhe, which plunges down the corrie to the east into Loch Avon: it may be considered the source of the River Avon.
From Lochan Buidhe, the path turns south again and climbs relentlessly over rocky ground: thank goodness for sturdy boots with solid soles. There is eventually a line of tiny cairns to mark the way. I thought at the time that to find the top I would just have to look for the highest mountain going and walk to it, but the landscape is very misleading – gorgeous, frightful, but misleading, as all around there are other famous peaks of the Cairngorms, and in this the mountain top just a mile and a half away may be lost. At this point though another walker appeared heading for the summit and reassured me of the way and spurred me on notwithstanding the ground.
Ben Macdhui: the summit
Then, eventually, there was the summit, marked with a crafted cairn and a toposcope. Ranged all around it in the distance to the south were other mountains with whose names I was very familiar, even if I had not trodden their slopes, yet: Braeriach, Carn Toul, Carn a’ Mhaim, Derry Cairngorm, and far off somewhere The Fiddler. Then the cloud lifted and far in the distance to the south-west appeared a familiar shape: Ben Nevis. Here the two highest mountains in the kingdom can salute each other.
There I stood in the midst of the Cairngorms, higher than any man in civilisation, unless they stood on the summit glimpsed for a moment in the distance. My companion of the last climb had disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared, leaving the mountain to me alone. It just remained then to find a way back.
Cairn Gorm is a worthwhile climb in itself, as well as the first step to Ben Macdhui, the second-highest mountain in the British Isles. The best starting and finishing point is the car park of the Ski Centre at the foot of Cairngorm: from Aviemore there is a long, sinuous road eastwards through the forest (which is of great interest in itself) and which climbs to the Ski Centre and no further, at 2,030 feet above sea level. The Ski Centre is manned in the walking season as well as the skiing season, and a helpful mountain ranger hut can guide newcomers on such useful points as where to find the start of the path (up past the toilet block and turn left at the arrow), points to be careful, and not to do it in flip-flops (I know, I know, but some people…)
Looking down on the car park
One thing is out: the ski lift is not available to walkers. Although it operates throughout the year, passengers are not permitted to ride it to the highest station and walk from there, as this could mean too much wear on the upper slopes of the mountain by the lazy: to reach the summit you have to be a serious walker and start from the bottom of the hill.
The path starts as a long haul straight up the flank of Cairn Gorm until the path reaches the top ski-lift station, where it flattens somewhat and the views are spectacular down over the forest and Loch Morlich, and over to Aviemore in Strathspey.
From this point the top of Cairn Gorm rises apparently as cone above you, with a clear, straight path upwards, marked with cairns. It is another, inviting hike upwards. In clear weather the path is plain if precipitous path. In a hailstorm (as when I first climbed the mountain) the cairns are a guide which are much needed.
It is not the top you see though: that is further on as the slope curves away. The first haul up the summit dome is a rewarding, steep push, which later calms down and the line of cairns leads eventually to the massive cairn at the summit of Cairn Gorm.
The summit areas is broad, and away from the summit cairn stands a weather station (abandoned? I could not tell). When the weather clears a fine view extends over the north, to the green forest of Rothiemurchus and The Queen’s Forest, and to Loch Morlich, and to the west over the threatening ridge of Stob Coire an t-Sneachda (which you soon realise with trembling is your next destination), and to the south rise the unearthly, trackless peaks of the inner parts of the Cairngorm Mountains.
The climb is worthwhile on its own. Next though, we will follow to Ben Macdhui itself.
Ben Macdhui in the Cairngorm Mountains stands at 4,295 feet: the second-highest peak in the British Isles. As its summit marks the border between Aberdeenshire and Banffshire, it is also the county top of both of those counties. BenMacdhui is one of just nine mountains in the British Isles exceeding 4,000 feet.
While there are plenty of guides to climbing the highest mountain, Ben Nevis, standing prominently above Fort William, and the paths to its summit are ground deep with countless boots, there are fewer visitors to the second highest, though it is just 114 feet short of its rival and it was once believed (until more accurate measurements were available) that Ben Macdhui was the higher.
Cairn Gorm (or Cairngorm) to the north climbs to 4,081 feet (its summit marking the border of Banffshire with Inverness-shire) and is better known as it gives its name to the whole Cairngorm range and is far more accessible: there is long established skiing centre here and a ski-lift running up the mountain to well short of its top and facilities at the foot of the mountain. It also stands between Ben Macdhui and civilisation and so most climbs of Ben Macdhui pass over Cairngorm first.
The starting base for a climb of Cairn Gorm is Aviemore, but the village is a long way from the foot of the mountain. The best starting and finishing point is the car park of the Ski Centre at the foot of Cairngorm: from Aviemore there is a long, sinuous road eastwards through the forest (which is of great interest in itself) and which climbs to the Ski Centre and no further. Other, more challenging starting points are available from stops along the road, but with limited parking (and without the helpful mountain guides).
