A bittersweet walk in the forest

Saturday 27 April 2024 – Epping Forest.

Today was my first walk in Epping Forest proper since December 2022, and as I used to go at least monthly when I was living in Walthamstow prior to the 2019 move to St Leonards, that is quite a remarkable break. Yes, I’ve really gotten into much more urban walking and photography in the past couple of years, but I love(d) the forest so this still felt like a madly long break.

It was to be a bittersweet return…

The morning started well. The wait for the train from Leytonstone to Loughton was under a minute, I had allowed for 10-12, and it wasn’t raining as heavily as expected, but for almost May it was flipping cold. I picked up a coffee in Loughton for the walk from the town centre to the forest and it wasn’t as bad as the coffee I last bought from the same café.

The late spring forest is my next favourite to mid-autumn forest. I like that there is still some winter colour and that there is still plenty of air between the trees. It’s too busy in full summer for me. The low grey cloud provided the perfect flat light as well as dulling any sound. The light rain meant the forest was quiet. it was almost perfect.

The plan was to walk from Loughton station to home in Leytonstone, walking almost entirely on unsealed paths and under the cover of trees through Epping Forest and the smaller subsidiary wooded areas through Chingford, Higham Park and Walthamstow. At the least the walk was just under 13kms in length, but I knew that once in forest I would be wandering all over the place and walking another 3 or 4 kms was more than likely.

I was determined that this would be a walk and not a prolonged photography session, but yeah, who was I kidding. The camera first came out soon after I entered the forest at Earls Path Pond and it really only went back in my bag when the rain was too hard. Needless to say I was enjoying myself. I have taken loads of photos here and at Strawberry Pond in the past and will do so again in the future.

I crossed over Epping Forest Road and spent some time bumbling about the Long Hills area of the forest, meandering down the smaller muddier tracks, taking photos here and there, changing direction when something caught my eye; though generally heading in the direction of the Hunting Lodge, where I was planning on stopping for (expensive) coffee and lunch.

I came across a spot where the forest pixies (volunteers) had been clearing bramble and holly and removing crowded saplings and dead and dying trees to allow clearer growth. I found a nice circle of blue bells amongst the stacked felled wood. While one can fantasize over wild forest and whether Epping should just be allowed to go feral and return to its ‘natural’ state without the interference of humans, I just don’t think it would work. This forest has been attended to by humans for centuries, it was protected royal hunting ground and animals foraged here, keeping the undergrowth down. It was also a source of wood for the communities that surrounded it and plenty of ancient pollarded trees remain. If it was let go it would just be a tangled mess of that bramble and holly and almost impenetrable.

The only place I don’t use my headphones when I’m alone is in the forest, and not for any personal safety thing, I want to enjoy the experience of being somewhere I’m not compelled to drown out the noise of the city. As I was walking I was thinking about how calm I was; I’m not one to overly promote the nature-bathing thing, and I won’t say I could feel life’s stresses leaving my body as I walked in relative peace, but it wasn’t far off that. When I go into the office I’m bombarded with noise from the moment I arrive at the station in the morning to when I leave it again and he end of the working day to walk the six minutes home. My day is surrounded by people who make a lot of noise, from those who talk loudly into their phone on the tube to drown out the rattle and screech of the trains to the constant (often inane) babble of people in the office. I have long realised I’m negatively affected by the constant noise. I need to walk in peace a lot more.

I was walking along feeling good, taking photos, enjoying feeling unstressed when I came to one of the many path intersections. Not being entirely sure where I was I reached into my pocket for my phone so I could find myself, and….. my phone wasn’t there. Queue much frantic searching of pockets and bag, then pockets and bag again and then the rapid realisation I had lost my phone somewhere ‘back there’, back where I had meandered aimlessly for at least 30 minutes. There was no point in going back and trying to find it. Luckily one of the few other walkers was nearby so I checked I was choosing the right path to get me back to Chingford, and the station, then home.

Other than ruining what was an enjoyable time, the most annoying thing was my phone was only two months old and it was my cost to replace it. Which, as I had time left in my day due to the early start, I managed to do.

I will try the walk again in a few weeks.