Thursday 26th January Woburn/Woburn Sands walk led by Margaret

 This 7 mile walk should have been led by Tony M, however as he was unable to lead it Margaret took over. It was very popular as it had 21 walkers with 4 more attending the half way lunch.

We started off form Woburn car park, turned left off Leighton Street, took the path though the woods which led back to the road where we crossed by Marylands. We followed the path down a steep slope where some of the walkers needed assistance to reach the ruined Horsemoor Farm.  At  the top of the hill we stopped for a water break  before descending to Longslade Lane which we crossed and after passing a field of black sheep we reached the wide footpath along the bottom of New Wavendon Heath.. We soon stopped for our coffee stop.

Two pictures of our coffee stop.

We then followed the track down to Sandy Lane which led to the double roundabout where we crossed the road to the Fir Tree Inn. We removed or covered our muddy boots and entered the pub to order our long awaited food.
Due to the numbers service was a little slow in the pub but everyone was talking and time passed quickly. We were soon outside where we donned our boots and said goodbye to the non walkers.
We left the road and entered the woods climbing up the track which has become rather churned up due to forestry operations being carried out there. We descended the steps to the Greensand Ridge walk poem and carried on to past Burnmoor Farm. As the "bridge" over the ditch leading to the football pitches has disappeared we continued on to the main road which we following into Woburn itself. Soon we were back at the car park and our cars. We all thanked Margaret for successfully leading the walk at such short notice.

Track of walk, walked in clockwise direction