Walk Report

A Walk with the Rabbits on Watership Down, Saturday 25th September 2010
8 walkers, 22 miles - leader Jerome Ripp
A group of 8 stalwarts gathered at Overton station for the first "last minute walk". The walk had only been put on in the last week and advertised on the website. We had lovely sunshine nearly all day despite the cold wind but it encouraged us to make good pace. We started beside the Portals factory which makes the paper for all our bank notes, and then slowly headed up into the hills to join the Wayfarer's Walk near Hannington. This is a glorious series of green tracks, rolling hills and grand views. Over Watership Down but no rabbits to be seen anywhere, maybe they were all at a management meeting? We crossed the A34 at Seven Barrows and saw a memorial to a maiden flight made by Geoffrey De Haviland from that spot in Sept.1910, a century commemoration. Our picnic lunch was in a splendid hillside with a huge view looking towards Beacon Hill and not a building to be seen. On to Grotto Copse and then farewell to the hills as we headed south through fields and woods and a return along the Harrow Way belt to Overton. 22 miles in just over 8 hours and we had been in the countryside all day; no villages and only a few houses and farms. A very good day for the end of summer.

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