Today’s weather was blergh-worthy, which means it was blog-worthy because on Sunday I had a treat of a beautifully, perfectly sunny day walking the Chess Valley Trail from Chesham to Chorleywood (and yes, those are their real names, but I bet you can’t pronounce them).
Beautiful days are something to relish in Spring in London. When the sun shines it’s like the whole city wakes up to get outside and take advantage of the extra rays. There’s a unique relationship with parks that I love. The minute the weather is nice and the ground isn’t soggy — two characteristics which don’t always line up — it’s like Londoners divide the parks into a grid and figure out how to all use the park while leaving the maximum average amount of space between each other.
So, on my sunny day I was more than happy to have had an invitation from a new friend to take a nice, long, wilderness walk. The trail is easy enough to get to — an easy morning or afternoon trip outside of the city — just hop on the Metropolitan line and ride all the way to Chesham, which is in Zone 9.
I didn’t even know there was a Zone 9.
Anyway, it takes about an hour. Pack snacks.
The trail itself it beautiful. The first fifteen-ish minutes were through Chesham, and then you just follow signs to wind your way through farms and hills and valleys along the Chess River.
You literally walk across farms and property. Most of the UK has protected public right-of-way through rural areas.
The trail gave way to some really beautiful views. We stopped about halfway on some giant tree trunk pieces overlooking a sweeping field. The kind the Microsoft probably used for its desktop background back in the day.
But THEN there were the Bluebells. The ground just off the trail was carpeted with them! So bright and cheery and purpley-blue.
Hungry for lunch, we detoured a bit off the Chess Valley Trail to grab food at The Cock Inn (quit laughing). It was delicious! (Seriously, stop it.) And they had live jazz music from 3.30pm on a Sunday. Classy!
The rest of the trip was just as beautiful and sunny and only had a small surprise of a llama and a bit of mud. We wound our way to the Chorleywood station for the ride back in to London knowing we’d done something significant and had taken full advantage of the sunshiney day!
Tolkien must have had the Chess Valley in mind when he described The Shire.
There was a moment where I said, “We found Middle Earth!” Some of the foresty areas were unreal — so green plus the sun shining through the trees.
I really want to visit that place! And the place name, “Loudwater”! Seriously Middle Earth!
This looks like such a nice walk! Did you pet the cat, sheep, or llama? Cause I absolutely would have.
I did not — they were all behind fences 🙁 But I totally thought of you when I posted the photo of the cat!