epping forest – Page 3 – Where is Phil now?

Autumn in Epping Forest – Week 1

Sunday 22 November 2017 – Epping Forest.

Last year I managed to pretty much miss the changing of the seasons in London. Autumn arrived quite late and the trees had not started properly changing colour until after I left for India. This year I stayed for the show.

I have not been to Epping Forest for a few weeks, and was really looking forward to this trip. I had a walk planned, batteries for the big camera charged and the tripod in the car.

On a normal trip to the forest I am looking for flat grey light, however today I was hoping for some nice low sun. Actually, what I was praying for was some dense mist, though I settled happily for the clear sky that I got.

I have a semi regular walking route I follow when I go to the forest, covering decent sized groves of beech and silver birch trees. The actual paths taken vary each time, and I often stray in to small blocks of trees that I have yet to thoroughly explore before. Blocks that feel remote, that are quiet; though always my new favourite block.

Though I took the tripod, I barely used it, something I utterly regret now as I do the edit, as most of the images are not really, really crisp. I was disappointed with that. I have no real explanation as to why I did not use the tripod much. I am blaming the fact I had planned too large a walk, for the limited time I had.

I am going to return next week and stick to one small area.

Here are the images I ended up with. I must admit I took an awful lot, way more than I normally do, but the forest was utterly spectacular. So much colour and so much vibrancy. I will leave it to you to judge 🙂

Searching for Obelisk

Sunday 30 July 2017 – Epping Forest.

The day after we returned from our south coast road trip I visited an exhibition at the wonderful Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge on the edge of Epping Forest. The exhibition was a collection of photographs taken by Marion Sidebottom, who is the current artist in residence at the forest. The focus of the work was the ancient trees in the forest, a subject I to am interested in. There were some lovely photos and I enjoyed a brief chat with Marion as well.

The exhibition did inspire me to get out and take some more photos in the forest, and maybe, just get lost wandering around for a while. My mission for this walk was to find a tree that was named in Marion’s exhibition as Obelisk. Two beech trees that appear to be wedded together. Helpfully Marion identified the location for the tree, so it was off to Loughton Camp I went.

Parking in the car park on Epping New Road, I headed off into the trees with the 5d on my back and the tripod under my arm. I was fully prepare for a photography session.

I know this section of the forest pretty well, so I was off the path and into the trees as soon as I left the car. The first scene I stopped at was one I had seen when I was last here on my bike. I am not particularly happy with this shot, though I am also not unhappy with it. This pretty much sums up all the photos I took today.

On the other side of the path I spent a bit of time trying to get a shot of the green moss popping out of the brown and yellow leaf covered soil. There was a lot of fast moving cloud about so it was quite tricky trying to get the light right. In the end I elected for a shady look.

Walking on I soon arrived in a clearing close to Strawberry Pond.

The sun was a lot brighter which made photography a more complex, there was also a strong and gusty breeze blowing, moving all the foliage around. I spent a bit of time trying to get a close up of the bright green ferns against the heather.

I very much like a strong contrast and am constantly on the look out for a bright white tree trunk against a lush dark green background. I like the concept of this photo, but it still not quite right, another one of those, not too bad but not great shots that were the mark of the day.

Crossing over Earls Path I slogged my way up the hill towards Loughton Camp, stopping on the way to photograph the trunks of this beech. I particularly liked the contrasting moss and the way it slowly moving up the trunk.

Arriving at Loughton Camp I was annoyed to find a small group of youf riding mountain bikes over the mounds. As a mountain biker I don’t blame them, they look like they would be a lot of fun, but this is an ancient site and should be preserved so it is still there in another 2500 years. There are a couple of signs saying no bikes, but not enough of them and they are not very clear. I didn’t want to point my camera at them in case they thought I was going to tell on them. I do think it restricted my taking photos though. So here is some of Loughton Camp, facing away from the boys on their bikes. You can see there is a well warn path through here.

With the boys riding around the north end of the camp I decided to explore the south and west, looking for the ‘Obelisk’ trees. The area is huge, and there are a lot of beech here. Apparently 60% of England’s ancient beech trees are in Epping Forest. I did not find Obelisk, but I did find this outline of New Zealand in the thin scraggly grass between the trees.

I spent a bit of time on the flat area looking for Obelisk and for anything else worth photographing, I took a few other images, but nothing I was overly happy with. Mildly frustrated I decided to head back towards the car, though walking down through the trees rather than the main path.

I spent a bit of time at this small grove of silver birch that were backed by some nice dark holly. It was fairly dim now, and I was shooting at quite a slow shutter speed to get a bit of depth. With the breeze and the incline I was not able to get a perfectly still shot. I made a note of the location and will come back here as autumn comes and the leaves start to turn.

The forest was quite dense, surprisingly so. I am used to quite open sections that can be ridden through. I ended doing more of a bush bash than I expected, finally working my way back to the path, Long trousers next time, will save losing skin on my legs.

Once back across Earls Path I took another side trip into the trees in the general direction of the car. I hit another gnarly dense section of forest, mainly holly bushes, which are never fun to push through. Bizarrely I came across a chair in the middle of the trees, there was nothing around to show that it had been the old camp site of a forest dweller or dwellers. Just a chair. Alone. I took a few photos of it. I love the forest!

It was a semi-good afternoon out. I wasn’t overly happy with my pictures, and I was disappointed I did not find the tree. I have two trees to find near Loughton Camp. The ‘skull tree’, from Will Ahshon’s book, and now Marion’s Obelisk.

More reasons to go back , though I do not need a reason to go back other than it is a magnificent section of a lovely forest.

Old school fun fairs and ancient trees. Life in e17

Sunday 11 June 2017 – London.

Summer is coming along nicely now, we have had a bit of rain but that was during the week, and who cares what the weather is like during the week? I don’t, at least while I am working in Hammersmith which is too far to ride to from home. Maybe when (if?) I start this new job which is a lot closer to home I will start riding to work again.

It has been an interesting weekend, quite busy, yet there seemed to be plenty of time to get a few chores done as well. The e17 art trail is on at the moment, it is a two yearly art happening in Walthamstow, which has grown significantly over the past couple of events and now features dozens of exhibitions in local homes and public spaces. El and I decided to take in one of the furthest away exhibitions and do a supermarket shop on the way back. It was nice day for a walk.

We passed Walthamstow Cemetery on the way, I have driven past it a couple of times, but have never been in, as we were on foot it seemed like the right time. It is pretty interesting, unlike the graveyard at our local church which is grassed; and very overgrown at the moment, Walthamstow cemetery is almost grass free. There has been some weird subsidence and earth movement here and a lot of the graves are now rough and tumbled, it was quite an interesting place, though the light was really harsh and I only had my cellphone. I will come back one day soon when the light is better, bring the camera and have a really good look around.

It turned out that the art exhibition had finished the weekend before, but the walk was still worth if for the cemetery visit alone.

A couple of weeks ago it was London Tree Week, something I was not ready for. I did see a couple of photos of what is supposed to be one of, if not, the oldest tree in Epping Forest, along with a rough idea of its location.It was such a nice morning so perfect for jumping on the mountain bike and going on a tree hunting mission. Trying to find a tree in a forest. It could be interesting!

With no real idea of the location of the tree I skipped all the fun bits in the small interlocked sections of forest and park that connect home to Epping Forest proper. I was not planning on stopping until I reached The Lost Pond, where the tree I am looking for is be located. However, there are longhorn cattle in the forest at the moment, and as I had to stop and open a gate it would have been rude to not take a photo when this cow came over to check me out.

My next stop was Loughton Camp, pretty much the furthest North I have been in this block of the forest, Loughton Camp is the site of an Iron Age fortified village from approximately 500 years BC. Obviously there is not a lot to see, but the banks, ditches and ramparts that were formed are still there. I think it is quite cool – a 2500 year old piece of history made of earth half hidden in an old forest.

I also found this very pretty old tree, a back up in case I do not find the one I am looking for! It too is a copparded beech. A copparded tree has been coppiced (pruned very close to the ground) and then pollarded (pruning of the top branches to promote growth) at various times over the decades and centuries.

North and west of Loughton Camp lies The Lost Pond, I have never ventured to this part of the forest before, so as well as the adventure of looking for an old tree I also had the added adventure of riding into an area I haven’t been to. I often end up on trails and in bits of forest I haven’t been in, but that has always been by mistake and in areas I generally sort of know.

From an adventure perspective it was all rather boring, I rode up the wide walking track for a little bit and then ducked off into the trees on a bit of single track. Two minutes later I found Lost Pond. It was not particularly lost, and I did not feel lost either. I stopped to take a photo of the pond, and two elderly couples wandered out of the forest to look at the pond as well. This made me feel even less adventurous. This section of the forest is particularly beautiful, though I think that every were I go.

Getting back on my bike I started to look for the ‘tree’, I knew what I was looking for, but trying to find a tree in a forest is like not seeing the wood for the trees. There are a lot of really nice beech trees in this section of the forest, which was a very good sign seeing as I was looking for a beech. I was quite surprised but I found the tree almost immediately, admittedly it did not require a huge amount of effort. It was disappointingly easy to find…

However finding it was not disappointing at all, it is a lovely tree. Possibly the oldest in the forest, and possibly over 1000 years old. It is a magnificent and regal specimen. It is a copparded beech tree. , as far back as Saxon times. It has been cut many times, pruned for firewood, fence and house building; who knows what for, but over centuries bits have been lopped off, but always leaving enough for it to continue to grow. Providing a source of wood for future generations.

I will come back to Lost Pond and this lovely ancient tree.

As is tradition on any ride, no matter where I am in the forest I always head to the tea hut at High Beech for a cup of instant coffee and piece of bread pudding; energy to ride back home. High Beech is usually the furthest part of the forest from home that I ride to. There is, of course, plenty more forest on from High Beech; and one day I will explore more of it.

The added bonus after eating the bread pudding is that from this ‘high’ point in the forest there are some really nice down hill tracks towards home, with so many choices and so many criss-cross tracks I inevitably end up somewhere new. This time I found myself in a wonderful little glade, with a couple of great, tall and straight trees. I must take my tree book up next time. One of the joys of randomly riding around the forest is coming across these sunny little spots, with possibility of never finding them again.

It was very peaceful, I could hear birds and the wind ruffling the trees and nothing else, and just as I was taking a photo of some lovely fungus a group of rattling chatting mountain bikers passed on through. Moment of reverie over. It was time to ride on home.

I was pretty knackered when I got home, I had been out for over three hours, which was quite a long time by my current standards and level of fitness. Every ride gets easier though!

After lunch and a wee lie down El and I walked round the corner to Lloyd Park which was hosting ‘Carters Steam-powered Funfair’ over the weekend. It was fabulous. Beautifully restored fairground rides, loads of families and kids. All the fun of the fair as they say. I only had my phone with me, but took a few photos anyway. I love seeing this sort of thing, things from my youth, looked after and being enjoyed by today’s young. Who cannot get joy from old school dodgems. So much better than Playstation.

And to finish, here is a photo of some wild flowers that have been planted in the street behind ours. We pass here every morning on the way to work. Lovely.

Back on the bike !

Sunday 22 January 2017 – London.

A rather belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and welcome to my first post of 2017.

It has been a very long time since I have been on my mountain bike, November 2015 was the last time I rode in the UK. I had a quick and awful pedal on my last trip to New Zealand and have only ridden the commuter bike once or twice since 2015. I have been meaning to get out more, honest.

I am going to stick to my usual excuse, no point in making up another one now. I have been really busy since I returned from my trip. I was unexpectedly straight back in to work and have been working ever since. As my contract finished before I left for India I was not expecting to be working so soon on my return, but I have been back at the same place on a sort of week-by-week basis.

I have also started to look for a full time permanent job, back to working five days a week. It is time to replenish a much hammered savings account. Much as I have loved working four day weeks, I have not saved any penny in over a year and have churned through the money I saved when I was working a full five days. I have been taking job applications semi-seriously this time, I have fired off quick responses to a couple of agencies but most applications have taken considerable time to complete. Fingers crossed one of those applications will prove that all the work has been worth it.

The other reason I have not ridden is I have been lazy, very lazy…

Last weekend as I was walking home from the laundrette I saw a mud covered mountain biker waiting at the lights near the end of my street. He looked like he had had a lot fun and I was quite jealous. I decided that I would do something about it. Mid-week and out of the blue I had a message from someone I have ridden with before asking me if I wanted to take a slow pedal around the forest. Perfect timing!

Fortunately all my bike needed was some air in the tires and a bit of chain lube, a quick spin around the block yesterday morning to make it all worked and I was ready to ride.

What I wasn’t really ready for was riding in -1 degrees. It was cold when I got outside! It was however a glorious sunny day, there was no wind and once we got going I sort of warmed up a bit.

There was a lot of frost on the ground and on the roofs of the parked cars as I pedalled up to the meeting point on Beacontree Ave. I was first to arrive and with a couple of minutes to wait took the first photo of the day. Frosty grasses in a road side tub.

With little exercise in the last 12 months I knew it was going to be a slow and hard ride, I was lucky that my riding buddy today, Tom, was not in for a fast ride either. I told him that I would be wanting to take some photos on the way. This was not just an excuse for multiple breaks. It was stunning out there this morning! Our first stop was only a few minutes in, this could be a long ride.

The ground was incredibly hard, I have never ridden on frozen mud before, mud that crunches under tyres or does not yield when ridden on, the puddles were mostly iced over and very few were broken under our wheels. Our next stop was at Highams Park Lake, which appeared to be completely frozen. I know shooting into the sun is a photography no-no, but meh, I have been breaking photography rules for years. Flareage!

I loved these leaves trapped under the thin ice on the lake.

It was a bit of a slog up Pole Hill, my legs were starting to feel it and we had only been going for 30 or 40 minutes. While we rested I went for a quick explore, looking for some frost laden leaves.

There is a great view over towards the Shard and down to Canary Wharf on a fine day, but there was a little mist around so we just had to make do with the view down over Chingford.

The ride down Pole Hill through the trees next to the golf course is one of a very small number of tracks that actually go down hill in the forest. So naturally it is one of my favourite trails in the park. There is also a great piece of single track on the other side of the road, with solid ground under-wheel, rather than the usual mud it was even better than usual. Though we did come across a really nice fern grove. So I had to stop…

I loved the way the frost made the surface of the leaves so white and fragile.

I didn’t take any more photos. Too tired and I needed to concentrate on the riding. We rode up to the tea hut at High Beach, which is a regular stopping point for a cup of coffee and a slice of cake. 2 pounds 10 for both. Wonderful, no wonder it is so popular with riders and walkers.

The ride back towards home starts off well with some really nice and mostly downhill single track, but as we leave the forest proper and meander through some smaller, but still forested parks it turns into a bit of a slog. At least today it was not muddy!

All up we were out for about three hours. It was damn good to be out and about on the bike again!

One week later. I went for another ride again today. There was no ice, but lots of mud and it was so much harder.

Not quite autumn

Sunday 23 October 2016 – Epping Forest.

This will be my last full weekend in London until December. Next Sunday I am off to Berlin for three days on a work trip and the day after I return to London I am back out to the airport and off on a month long holiday trip to India, Australia, New Zealand and Dubai. I am looking forward to it, though pensively.

I haven’t travelled alone and to somewhere out of my comfort zone since the month in Sri Lanka back in early 2013. I am now a lot more settled than I was then and am happy with my life and with where I am in it. Plus I have gotten a little older, softer and greyer in the interim. There are nerves, but I am very excited by it. The planning is almost over and the trip will soon be under way.

I have been waiting for full autumn to arrive for a few weeks now. With a long and reasonably dry summer over later than normal the trees in Epping Forest have been holding on to their green colour further into October than expected. While I very much enjoyed the summer, I was also looking forward to seeing the season change. I don’t think I am going to see it.

With no more opportunities to see autumn in the forest this year I drove there this morning to go for a walk with my camera so I can see what colour had come out. Visually, it was largely disappointing, a little bit of yellow, but no dark orange and definitely no red. Yet. It will come I am sure, I just won’t be here to see it.

I took a few photos, not a lot as the colour wasn’t there and I wasn’t really feeling it either. So here are a few of them.

It was really nice to be outside in some (relatively) fresh air and take a walk among some lovely young and old trees, if they were refusing to show off their autumn colour.

The beautiful bluebells of Chalet Wood.

Friday 29 April 2016 – Wanstead Park, London.

It is spring here in the UK, not that you can tell that by the weather. Two days ago there was a flurry of snow in London – admittedly if you had blinked slowly you would have missed it, but it was a snow fall nonetheless. I am blaming a cutting arctic wind that slices through to the bone if you are not adequately dressed. When I was walking home after taking these photos today there was a brief wind driven hail and rain shower that felt like mid-winter had returned. It was awful.

Only working a four day week means I have Fridays off, so I took the opportunity to nip out to Chalet Wood in Wanstead Park to check out the bluebell fields, hoping that it would be less crowded than I knew the weekend would be. El and I have been planning on visiting for the past couple of weekends but just have not had a chance to make it. With the season about to end I decided to go solo.

Having been to look at the bluebells last year it took me no time at all to find my way there from Wanstead Park Station, which obtusely is near Wanstead Flats, not Wanstead Park. The walk through the flats was quite nice though, the sun keeping the cold away.

Once I got to Chalet Wood and the bluebell grove I took lots of photos, there is no point in me saying any more really!

I liked the interplay between shadow and light between the trees and the way the small paths wound their way through the patch, allowing visitors to get in amongst the flowers without trampling them down.

I think this crow was guarding it’s small patch !

Fabulous – and not too many people there either. I had planned on getting there early to catch some early morning sun coming through the trees, but I didn’t make it, there was still some sun though it was sporadic, eventually leading to rain and hail on the walk back home.

Photos of Epping Forest.

Friday 22 April 2016, Epping Forest, London.

Ever since we got back from New Zealand and Hong Kong I have been suffering from a distinct lack of interest in actually doing anything, though if I am honest this malaise has been hanging over my head like a threatening rain cloud for a while. In the last couple of weeks I blamed the jet lag. Convenient. Yet wrong. Not that I have any other answer for it. Maybe it is just simply that I got lazy! I have had a couple of attempts at the gym since we got back and didn’t enjoy either of them, I feel unfit and slow, and at times a little miserable about it all.

Yesterday I read a post by Paul, a guy I follow on WordPress, about how getting outdoors and doing some exercise can make you feel a whole lot better. I know this, in fact I have known this for a long time, yet still I was doing very little about it. It is a great read, so check it out and it did make me determined to get up early this morning, get back to Epping Forest, take my camera and go for a good walk.

Then…… This morning. I had a poor sleep, again, second really bad night in a row. I was awake when El got up for work, and I planned on getting up and out the door before mid-morning. Once El had left, the malaise hit me again and all of a sudden I was planning on a day of reading and wasting time surfing the internet – doing anything but what I really needed to do. Shift my butt – and my head.

I was on my second cup of coffee, still in bed, reading Kiwi Trail Runner magazine when I came across another article about exercise and a healthy mind. This time I did make it out of bed. I am glad I did!

I took the bus to Chingford Station on the edge of Epping Forest. I had been thinking of walking home from Chingford using all the linked sections of forest that I use on mountain bike rides, but on the bus I changed my mind and decided to head into the forest and wander vacantly instead. Getting lost would be OK, it is not a vast forest and I sort of know my way about.

I started off walking up one of the many preformed paths, following a man walking a couple of small dogs at a much faster pace than I planned on mustering today.

I am trying to slow down a bit, I have always been a fast walker, and since being in London, I have got faster and more ‘aggressive’ in my walking, I have a rush hour head on all the time. I want to teach myself to relax, care more about the journey than the arriving. I think I did OK today. I noticed the smells of the forest, as soon as I was under the tree cover; the earthy smell of mould and rotting tree fall permeated the air, a healthy natural smell, not unpleasant. Just there and it felt good noticing it. Taking the time to listen and smell and really see was something I need do to more often.

I finally reached the end of the path I was on and had a few choices of dirt single track to chose. I wanted to try and find a silver birch grove I have passed through on my rides, which had become a favourite part of the forest. I have not ridden here all year – part of my slackness. I was blaming the mud – but I rode last winter. I was sort of scoping out the mud today with a near future ride in mind. There was a lot less mud than winter, but still plenty about.

Carrying on in what was the general direction of where I thought I wanted to go, I saw loads of trees I wanted to take photos of. I am a bit of obsessed with trees and forests at the moment, a very long moment I guess. At the start of the walk I was looking for something different to take photos of, there is a lot of tree fall in the forest, short roots and light soil leave them exposed to the dangers from a high wind.

With spring well under way, there is a lot green about, fresh buds mixing with old winter growth. There is not a huge amount of colour around, but seeing the trees starting to embrace the spring and lead us towards summer is such a good thing.

The other thing I was looking to take some photos of was the small stream that runs through this section of the forest, it was my target for when I headed back towards the station. I like the way it twists and turns every few metres. Next time I hit the forest I will walk the stream from one edge to the other.

More by good fortune than good planning I found the area I was looking for, a gentle hill that heads up in the direction of High Beach. I love this grafittied (I think) beach tree. Some of the dates stretch back a few decades.

This part of the forest is just stunning, and that was before I hit the silver birch section. It is a time of the year I really like in the forest, just as the leaves are starting to reappear on the trees, there is more light, softer more delicate colour and the shapes made by the branches and trunks are still visible.

And then I went a bit camera mad. One of the wise decisions I made when I packed a bag last night, and I did think twice about this, was to bring a tripod. I brought a lighter weight one, which I did regret as it did not cope well with the weight of the 5d. Next time I will take the big one. But the tripod allowed me to take better photos.

I spent quite a long time wandering aimlessly around the silver birch grove. The great thing about Epping is it is so small you just cannot get seriously lost. I didn’t bother with trails up here, just moved between the trees to the next location that took my fancy. I found a nice open space at the top of the low rise, where I stopped for a drink of water, a snack and a sit down on a pile of dead trees.

There was another lovely little grove of silver birches on my way back towards the station; I really do love these trees and just could not help myself and took a few more photos.

I must admit to getting a bit mis-placed on my way back, thinking I was in one place and then finding out I was somewhere else, just like I do on my bike rides. I saw a couple of small deer in this section, I was not quick enough to get a photo, but it was pleasing to see them, maybe one day I will come back with a bigger lens and do a bit of deer stalking.

I eventually found the stream again, so I walked along it for a while, taking photos here and there. These little bridges are pretty cool, I am assuming for mountain bikers to cross the small streams. I just like the fact they are there and there is no path leading to or away from them.

Soon enough I was on one of the fixed paths heading back towards the station. Except I wasn’t, I was on a path heading away from the station… Not terribly away, not 180 degrees, now that would have been embarrassing! Once I worked out where I was it was a fairly short hike back to where I started.

I was out for 3 ½ hours. 3 ½ hours of relative peace – you can hear the road from many places in the forest, but fresh air, lovely trees and semi-solitude. It was what the soul needed and I felt so much better than I did when I woke up this morning and almost did not go out.

I have now bought a book on English trees, it is about time I could name more than just an oak tree.

In other news – let’s drift back in time a bit to last week. I quit my job. I don’t have another one to go to, but I have a three month notice period, which just made looking for another job seem impossible. I have taken the risk and hopefully it will pay off!

P.S A question a few days after posting.

I have just looked at this post on a different computer from the one I edited the photos on. The photos on that computer were, in my opinion, a bit too bright and almost over-exposed. Do you see over-bright photos or over-dark photos ? I am interested to know so I can make sure I edit on the right computer! Please let me know.

Bike exploring in Epping Forest.

Sunday 30 August 2015 – Epping Forest.

I haven’t been out on the bike for a few weeks so I took the opportunity of the extra day off work with this being a long weekend to pop out for a couple of hours of pedalling up to and around Epping Forest. It was a solo ride today so I took the camera along as well, it always gives me an excuse to stop riding and have a rest, not that I really needed one as this was a slow ride.

After a few weeks of not too bad weather there has been a bit of rain over the past week and some of the tracks were really slippery, like someone had poured oil onto an ice rink – with added ruts to keep it interesting. Surprisingly I did not fall off like I usually do in the slippery stuff.

There are many things I love about riding in Epping Forest, and one of those things is getting to Epping Forest. In Auckland I had to drive 40 minutes to the forest, here I ride 40 minutes, and just about all of that time is off road. The small area of Walthamstow Forest is five minutes from home and there are a couple of really good trails in there. I am always finding something new, though this one didn’t seem to go too far.

I just cannot believe there is riding this good in NE London!

Across one of the numerous roads is the narrow stretch of Highams Park and its small boating lake, I don’t think I have ever seen any one in a boat on the lake though. There were lots of dog walkers and families out, so it was a slow and polite pedal around the lake.

I was keen to try something different on this ride, Epping is pretty big and riddled with trails, I am slowly getting familiar with the basic layout of the forest now, and while I still get ‘lost’ on every ride I haven’t resorted to using my phone to find myself for a long time. I was a bit annoyed that the battery died in my Garmin watch as I do like to see where I have been when I get home. I ended up riding up Warren Hill, a change from the single and double track I had been riding on.

I rode up the side of the forest looking for a way to get in to the trees to see if there was any single track in there, I ended up riding up the grass and ducking down to the right at the top and a wide section of track that was really starting to show a bit of early leaf fall. Autumn must be on the way, though it was pretty warm out this morning. I just love the trees in English forests. I was still taking it pretty slow, the track was slippery as heck and stupidly I didn’t have my riding glasses in my bag and there was a lot of loose dirt flying up and hitting my face, on occasion I was riding one handed with the other in front of my eyes. This does not make for high speed runs, even on the downhill sections.

Soon enough this part of the forest ended up at one of the main roads, I think I was crossing Epping New Rd. I haven’t had to life my bike over a fence for ages!

My mission for the day was to find Loughton Camp, the site of an Iron Age fort. There is, of course, nothing left now except the dirt mounds. As this site is from around 500BC, over 2500 years old there is still some speculation as to what it was used for, the most likely being that it was used to protect cattle from other tribes/villages. There are stories that Boadicea used the camp, and that many many years later the highway man, Dick Turpin had a hideout here. It has some interesting history !

The sign says no cycling as this is a listed historical site. A you can see the place is riddled with bike tracks, in fact I rode through it myself as I came from the opposite direction where there was no sign and I didn’t really realise where I was until it was too late. Sorry !!

I can see why people have been riding here, with all those banks and berms, it looks like there would be a bit of fun for those more inclined to jumping than I am. A shame, as a fan of preserving history, as well as a mountain biker, I like to see these place preserved, but accessible. There needs to be a better education plan – and some more signs. It is a lovely part of the forest though.

By complete accident I found my next stop, the tea hut at High Beach. Cup of coffee and a sausage roll. A perfect mid ride refuel and hugely popular with all types of riders – even those weird lycra clad road types.

The ride back towards home was as random as usual, I don’t think I rode on any tracks I have previously ridden on, such a warren of single track around here, just perfect for losing time and place in. I love it how tracks that are so clear just sort of die out in a clearing, and I have to ride around trying to find another track to get out, or make my own way through the trees, proper trail riding.

Soon enough I was back on the familiar trails that lead from the official Epping Forest back to home in Walthamstow. I usually ride on this River Ching (calling this a river requires one to take a massive leap in imagination). The bridge gets ricketier and ricketier each ride.

Over the North Circular and that was pretty much the end of the ride, just a blast down the road to home. I love it that this forest is that close to the city !!

El has been doing up the garden over summer, and there is now a nice new patio area – just where I used to clean the bike. I am not sure what to do now !!

The bike is still dirty….

Strawberry Hill Pond

Saturday 23 May 2015 – Epping Forest.

Now that I am a working man I can fully appreciate the fact that May has two bank holiday weekends, or long weekends as we would call them in New Zealand. This weekend is the second of them. Sadly it is also the last long weekend for quite a long time, but at least summer holidays are looming in this, the northern half of the world, so there is something to look forward to.

On the subject of holidays, I have two planned so far for the coming summer; a quick ten day visit to New Zealand in June for my grandson’s first birthday and then I am taking the whole of August as a break. I have a plan for the month off; it involves lots of walking, a tent and parts of the southwest coast path – I am very drawn to that (not so) small, but beautiful part of England’s coast. I blame Malcolm Law!

One of the things I really enjoy about any trip or activity I do is the pre-planning and research, so with both NZ and a proper backpacking holiday approaching I have been spending an awful lot of time in front of the laptop surfing the internet to book flights, plan accommodation and research the best pack and tent for multi-day solo walking trips. This usually ends up with me getting distracted, looking for some obscure noisy band and then buying their records, like the new album by 93Millionmilesfromthesun which I bought last week.

The weather forecast for this weekend is looking reasonable – i.e. it is not supposed to rain, so El and I decided this morning to make the most of the day and get out for a walk. I had wanted to find Strawberry Hill Pond in Epping Forest since I rode past it a few weeks back on a group mountain bike ride, as the sun was out we decided it would be a good thing to do with the day.

We caught a bus up to Loughton as it is on the edge of the forest and not far from where the map said the pond was likely to be. As we walked up the road from Loughton into and through the forest it started to drizzle with rain so we instead of heading immediately into the forest we chose to walk up the road a bit further and stop at the Robin Hood pub for a coffee and a bit of shelter.

We were the only ones in there at 11:30am. I supposed that is a good thing.

We hung around for a while after the coffee as we waited for the rain to stop, but eventually gave up and headed out into a light drizzle, the pub is in the middle of the forest and we only had to walk a short distance to get onto a section of single track used by the mountain bikers – and into the shelter of the trees, as we headed back to the car park where the path off to the ponds started.

As we approached the car park I suggested taking a short detour in the complete opposite direction to look for Loughton Camp, the site of an Iron Age fort. I always imagine ancient fort sites as having ruined walls and slightly leaning old towers, but these very old forts were made of wood and are long gone. All that is left is the earth works. As this was not part of the plan before we left home I only had a vague idea of its location and after 15 minutes of walking up some short, but surprisingly steep inclines we turned around and headed back to where we should have been going in the first place. I will try and find the fort on a bike ride one day soon.

Strawberry Hill Pond, like all the other ponds in this stretch of the wood was formed when Epping New Road was built in the 1830s and gravel was dug from the ground for its construction. Sadly the early burst of clean sun we saw before leaving home did not make a repeat appearance after the rain and the light was terrible for taking photos. Flat and dull. None of the photos I took around the ponds are particularly good, they do show what a lovely spot it would be on a nice day though.

We walked around the outside of the small pond, and I spotted three herons sitting in the top of a tree on one of the islands in the pond. The pond is not fed from any stream so the water is all supplied by rain, it is brown due to the soil rather than it being dirty. It really is a pretty area and it was a shame that the sun was not shining on it to really make the colour in the trees shine.

The herons flew away soon after we saw them. One of them landed on the shore on the far side of the pond so we headed in that direction, just as I went to take a photo from a spot quite close to the bird, a couple coming the other way disturbed the heron before I could press the shutter.

For some reason I was really surprised to see the herons today, I never really saw them as a bird that lived in such proximity to a big city, sometimes it is really good to have perceptions changed.

I thought I knew the way to Chingford station from the pond, and while we did not get lost on the way back and I am fairly sure we took the correct paths, it did take a lot longer to get there than I expected it would. Though there are not too many other places I would rather be unsure of my location in. We soon popped out of the forest onto the bottom of the final hill before lunch.

We chose to stop for lunch at Butler’s Retreat, a Victorian era building, originally designed as a food store, though it has been a cafe for quite a long time now. Neither of us had been there for lunch, plus it was the first place we came to!

We both had bacon sandwiches and they were excellent, as were the coffees and cakes we decided to have for dessert, after all that walking we felt we had deserved cake! The food was very expensive, more than it should be, but at least it was good. I would stop there again I think.

With full bellies we waddled the last kilometre to Chingford Station to catch the train back to Walthamstow and home.

I was disappointed with the weather – especially the unexpected rain shower, but it was a really nice walk and lovely to be back outside. It is a real blessing to have Epping Forest so near by.

Bluebells in Wanstead Park

Monday 05 May 2015 – Wanstead Park, London(ish).

Monday was a public holiday, YAY, a much needed day off of work. Though I did work Saturday, so really it was like a normal weekend, with the added promise of a short week ahead.

The forecast had been a bit dubious leading up to the weekend and it was still pretty unclear most mornings what the day was actually going to hold. Sunday was spent doing not much, a bit of work here and there, the reorganising of my stuff, putting away winter clothes – and finding a bunch of old band t-shirts that had been squirreled away.

We didn’t really have a plan for today, we started off with seeing what the weather would actually do, and as it did not look to bad out there I decided I wanted to see bluebells in Epping Forest rather than head into London and visit the Tate, which was the rainy day plan A. A quick internet search suggested the best blue bells were in Wanstead Park, an edge extension of Epping. As I have not been there before we decided it was worth a visit.

We caught the overground to Wanstead Park station which naturally is next to Wanstead Flats, not Wanstead Park – the flats are a park, but not THE park. Confused ? We walked across the flats, up a side street and were soon into the park proper. I like the fact that Fishing is in capital letters and swimming and bathing are not. Does that mean that Fishing is a more serious offence ?

I had read that the bluebells would be found in Chapel Wood, however none of the signs were giving away the location of Chapel Wood, so we decided to do the decent thing and head to the tea hut for a cup of tea/coffee first, and do the umanly/unBritish thing of asking directions.

On the way to the hut we passed by the tree lined walk to the “Temple”. I had no idea what this was until I looked it up when I got home. The temple was built around 1760, in a section of a much larger estate. The estate was run down by its financially lax owner in the 1800’s and part of it was sold off to the Corporation of London to form what is now Wanstead Park.

The tea hut is the old grotto left that was also part of the original estate and they made a pretty good flat white too…

We were given directions to the blue bells, which ended up being pretty much back the way we came, though closer to the Temple.

This seasonal spring blue bell patch is supposed to the best in all of Epping Forest, which must make it one of the best in London. It was truly lovely – and this comes from someone who does not go all goo over a flower bed. I guess I liked it because it was wild. I took a lot of photos, as did many other people !

I liked that there were paths running through the patch so people could get closer without trampling them. I also liked it that most people stayed on the edges so every one got to take photos without having the frame filled with strangers.

I even asked someone to take a photo of El and I together as well.

Before we left home in the morning we had sort of planned on walking back, so after a brief start in the wrong direction before consulting a map, we headed homeward. Most of the way was under the trees and off the road, which was very nice and I loved the oak trees that lined the way.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock was born in nearby Leytonstone, and had no previous relationship with this hotel, which is named after him. It did not stop us going in for a half though…

It was a lovely afternoon walk, we probably did 6 or 7 miles as well, so good exercise in the sun !