Ah, Hemel Hempstead. Who hasn’t dreamed of visiting that mythical town? On Saturday morning I woke up and decided I’d do just that, following a similar route to one I did a few years ago.

I wisely decided to cheat a little bit and got a bus part of the way to Loudwater, near High Wycombe, and then embarked on an epic 22 mile slog through some very boggy terrain. In hindsight this was probably an adventure best saved until summer.

At one point a country road had turned into a river. The water was flowing alarmingly quickly but it wasn’t clear where to.

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The higher parts of the route weren’t so bad, and at least it was a sunny day. This is the pleasant looking church at Coleshill:

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Around 5pm the light started failing and I decided to abandon the footpaths and take a short cut via some minor roads. Turned out to be a good decision as by the time I got to Hemel Hempstead it was completely dark.

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As I was tired, hungry, and facing a nearly two hour train ride home, I decided not to bother doing any exploring of Hemel Hempstead which rendered the whole journey rather pointless. Maybe I’ll make a return visit: apparently a top attraction is the world’s oldest mechanised paper mill which sounds somewhat interesting…