I haven't a scooby where we are...

Date: Sat 5th April
Distance: 15.4 km (9.6 miles)
Location: Hertford, Cole Green Way, Unknown, Little Berkhamsted.
Conditions: Bit muddy
Weather: Chilly, Raining at times.
Participants: Phil & Nikki, Gee, Family Wol.

"I haven't a scooby where we are" - as these words tumbled from Phil's mouth, so the map was thrown over his shoulder into the field behind. We'd reached a low point in our confidence of where we where and our ability to reconcile local landmarks to anything shown on the map.

Despite the slight hiccups in orienteering, this was one of most enjoyable walks I've participated in, once again discovering new areas of Hertfordshire, enjoying the good company, having a good laugh (in the main, I admit, at Phil's expense), and finishing off with a couple of pints in the pub.

We all met at HTFC and headed off down the Cole Green Way to Letty Green - so far, so good. We'd seen a muntjac and some rabbits, heard a woodpecker and to help maintain the kids' interest, Gee had helped them find some long walking sticks (he looked a bit like Gandalf with the hobbits jumping around him).

At Letty green, we left the Cole Green Way and walked a little way along the road with the intention of re-joining a public bridleway and heading off towards Howe Green. No problem, Phil was all over the OS map (he'd already pre-mapped out the walk, marked out the Herts chain walks, knew the distance and everything).

It's only when we realised that the heart of a working quarry may not be where you'd bring your horse for a quick trot, that we needed a review of where we were going.

After a quick reccy of the area, and no sign of the bridleway (and to be fair to Phil, this quarry was not marked on his map), we worked our way out and headed off down another track. This diversion did prove to be a big hit with the kids though - it was like a set from "Bob the Builder - the movie"...

After a few moments though, we were clearly not on course and Phil had to seek help from someone working in a nearby horse-farm (equestrian centre?). We were sent back from where we came, to the entrance of the quarry to take a different route and shortly we were back on the bridleway. Hurrah!

The end of the bridleway at a road not on our map once again plunged us into the unknown. We walked up the road for a bit, turned round, and walked back down the road. We had a quick snack-stop - of which there we many (it seems that as soon a kid's attention/interest wanes, they suddenly become starving). A little dog from a nearby farmhouse had joined us to warn us away from it's territory - fair enough - but then decided to join us for a while why we had our snack and re-checked the map, continuing to warn us off. This was a very quick stop, and good job really, as I think the dog was seconds away from being warned-off itself by the force of Phil's walking boot...
Anyway, we changed our strategy and decided to head for a tower that we could see (that could been one of two marked on the map). This positive move seemed to give Phil a bit of a boost and with map in hand he stepped up the pace and marched off down the footpath. When the footpath ended in an "unexpected" place, this was the moment that the map took flight and Phil acknowledged that he was clueless as to where we were.

Undeterred, we continued through the fields towards the tower, and once we'd encountered a road, Paula had a eureka moment and recognised where we were. Indeed, when this road came out on a more major thoroughfare, we had confirmation of our position, our location on the map, and our route home.

3 hrs 40 mins later, we were in the Black Horse, pouring over the map to work out where we'd been and enjoying a couple of well-deserved pints.

Note to oneself - must monitor the kids' jukebox selection in future...

Carl.