A "Bonus" County Bagging opportunity cropped up when my WI organised a trip to Bletchley Park. As soon as the details were finalised I scrutinised maps of the area to see if there were any short walks I could do if we got any free time.
We got quite a bit of free time really so I managed both of the walks I'd earmarked as potentials.
Saturday, 11th May 2019
We all piled on the coach at 7.45am for the loooooong drive down to Buckinghamshire. After reading the food menu for our first visit of the weekend and seeing the prices I bought a slightly less (only slightly mindst) expensive sandwich and bag of crisps from the motorway services we stopped at for a comfort break en-route.
We arrived at Waddesdon Manor at 12 noon and had time to wander around the grounds before the house was open to the public. To be honest, I'm not right fussed about going around stately homes - or rather - I consider it a wet weather pastime. With this in mind and the sun being out, I opted not to tour the house and chose instead to thoroughly explore the grounds and find a nice bench in the sunshine to eat my lunch.
Some pics:
 |
| Waddesdon Manor |
 |
| Wine bottle sculpture |
 |
| One of the avenues to the grounds and gardens |
 |
| Chris exploring the Power House |
 |
| Inside the Power House |
 |
| Nice woodland walkway |
 |
| Lovely carpet of Bluebells |
 |
Miss Alice's Drive
(woodland walk) |
 |
| Reindeer Sculptures |
 |
| Lovely copper beech tree contrasting with the green |
 |
| Origami sculpture in the Japanese Garden |
 |
| The very ornate Aviary |
 |
| Fountain inside the Aviary |
 |
| One of many landscaped sculptures around the grounds |
 |
| I just really liked this tree |
 |
| Bluebells (and pink and white ones too) |
 |
| Glimpse of the countryside beyond |
 |
| Fairytale towers - the architecture of the whole building is very ornate |
 |
| Spot the bug! |
 |
| This would no doubt be the "formal" view of the house |
 |
| Jackdaw scavenging at the cafe |
 |
| Water fountain near where the coach was parked |
Me and Chris whiled away a good few hours meandering around the grounds and we clocked up 2.77 miles in the sunshine!
Once back on the coach we had an hour's drive to our accommodation for the evening - Woughton Manor. I only had time for a short walk around the building before getting ready for our evening meal but made arrangements with Pam to do an early morning walk before breakfast the following day.
Sunday, 12th May 2019
After a wonderful night's sleep in the world's most squishy bed ever I had a quick cuppa, shower and got dressed ready to meet Pam for our walk at 7am.
I'd had a look on tinterweb and found a short 2.5 mile walk which followed the River Ouzel, cut across parkland and returned via the Grand Union Canal and a Community Orchard although I never printed out a map and things didn't go quite to plan!
Some pics...
 |
| Footpath sign behind the Church in Woughton |
 |
| Easy path across the grazing pasture/parkland |
 |
| Info board on the medieval village |
 |
| Friendly moggy |
 |
| Lovely woodland path |
 |
| Hot air balloon enjoying the cloudless skies |
 |
| Onto the Canal now |
 |
| Narrowboats moored up |
 |
| Entrance to Milton Keynes Marina |
 |
| One of many bridges over the canal |
 |
| Heading into the Community Orchard |
 |
| Lovely old apple trees coming into bloom |
 |
| Conker blossom? |
 |
| Definitely conker blossom |
 |
| Back on the canal again |
 |
| Returning to St Mary's Church, Woughton |
 |
Woughton Manor - our accommodation for the previous evening
(and a delicious breakfast awaits after a lovely walk) |
We did manage to get a little bit confused over which side of the canal we needed to be on and ended up extending out walk to 3.68 miles instead of the 2.5 miles it was supposed to be! However, had we not got temporarily misplaced, we might not have seen a heron and a fox.
We dived into our delicious breakfast before checking out of our rooms and gathering outside for a group photo before heading off to Bletchley Park.
Bletchley Park
After a short drive we arrived at Bletchley Park. Some people signed up for the guided tour, others got the headphones and podcast type gadgets but I just wanted to wander as I pleased in and out of the huts and buildings. They recommend taking 4 to 5 hours to tour the site and at first I thought that was a bit of an over-exaggeration. Well no, it's not. We got there at around 11am and left at 3pm and I never got to see all of it. I only took a couple of photos as it's not the sort of place where photography enhances the information you see, read, hear and watch. It's mind boggling and completely fascinating and well worth a visit.
Because it's a large site, I decided to set ViewRanger to track record and managed a respectable 2.3 miles just wandering in and around and out of all the huts.
Again, the weather was wonderful and I enjoyed my lunch sat near the lake watching a Heron rather than in one of the old huts which had been turned into a cafe.
Like I say, I only took a couple of pics but here they are...
 |
| Example of some of the coding rooms |
 |
| The admin set up |
 |
| Heron |
 |
| He came closer to pose for a photo! |
I was surpised about how far I walked around Bletchley really. I expected it to be a mile but ViewRanger told me differently!
As I mentioned previously, I also did a short walk around the hotel before our evening meal. It didn't amount to much mileage (0.3 miles!) so I won't link the VR track recording but I am now (frustratingly) only one mile short of officially "bagging" Buckinghamshire!
All in all though, it was a really lovely weekend. Big thanks must go to Jenny for organising it.
Thanks for reading 😊
