doof.me.uk

Last day out in the UK for a few months as doof.me.uk will soon be temporarily relocated. Decided to go walking near the Roman town at Silchester I visited a few times before. And from there walked along the downs to Newbury.

Iron age fort

There’s something about Newbury as a destination for my hikes, whenever I go there it always turns into proper adventure. This time I wildly underestimated distances as usual and the sun started to set while I was still on the hills 6-7 miles from Newbury so I ended up doing the last two hours or so along some country lanes in the dark. It was quite exciting actually – lucky I brought my torch though.

Downland at sunset

I went for another outing on Saturday, this time from Saunderton to Henley. I wanted to go all the way to Goring but it was way too boggy for that. In the mud I managed less than 2mph on average.

Church at Radnage

Muddy

I went for an adventure on Thursday and ventured further east out into the Thames estuary from Dartford to Gravesend and then across the river to Tilbury in Essex.

Dartford had a lively market and a Wimpy, rumours of the latter’s demise proved unfounded. The highlight of the walk was definitely going under the QE2 bridge at the Dartford crossing. Reminded me a little bit of my excursion to Hull many years ago.

Dartford crossing

Walking along the salt marshes in the sunshine was quite pleasant, although it got a bit sketchy between Northfleet and Gravesend, ending up in some industrial estate. At Gravesend I hopped on this ferry to Tilbury on the other side. As the light was fading I hurried over to take a look at Tilbury fort: it was closed.

Tilbury ferry

Tilbury is a rather bleak place. Dominated by the docks and more lorries than I ever saw in one place before. And that infamous Amazon warehouse. This poignant Newsnight documentary gives an accurate feel for the town.

I went to visit a friend in York last weekend. The Friday afternoon was really sunny so I took some photos of the minster. And also nearly froze to death. It’s cold up north.

York minster

On Sunday, somewhat inspired by All the Stations, I went on a rail adventure around west Yorkshire. First stop was Pontefract. It has a rather delightful market town centre, but almost everything is closed on a Sunday.

Pontefract

I heard Pontefract had a castle, but the reality was rather disappointing. Most of it was destroyed after the civil war, and what’s left is being renovated. The views over the countryside and power plants were quite good though.

Pontefract castle

After Pontefract I went to Wakefield and discovered there’s not much worth visiting there. They have a modern art gallery but I soon remembered I don’t like modern art and got back on the train to Doncaster.

Doncaster Minster

Doncaster has an old marketplace which looked interesting but closed. So I walked around the minster instead. And rather nice it is too! Very petite compared to the one in York.

Way back in 2010 I walked along the easternmost section of the Thames Path, to a rather dreary town called Erith. Actually the official end of the Thames Path extension is a little bit further at Crayford Ness so I’ve had this niggling sense of unfinishedness ever since. Well, time to put that right!

I was a bit disappointed when I got to the Thames Barrier that the exhibition centre was closed for refurbishment. Not sure when it’s going to open again but based on the scale of construction it should be pretty epic.

Thames barrier

The wind was bitterly cold and I was walking into it the whole time, but the late afternoon was beautifully clear and I managed to take some nice photos of the Dartford crossing and the Thames estuary.

Dartford crossing

I wanted to finish up in Dartford itself as I’ve never been there, but it had already gotten dark and it seemed a bit far so I caught the train back from another drab commuter suburb called Slade Green.

Here’s another walk I did recently, from High Wycombe to Henley-on-Thames. Nothing particularly exciting or out of the ordinary, but a nice route to do.

West Wycombe hill

Turville, which was the filming location for the Vicar of Dibley

I’ve been meaning to revisit Aylesbury since I discovered it back in 2015. I thought I could do a little ring around it along the signposted Aylesbury Ring. But that turned out to be wildly optimistic and I barely made it a quarter of the way round.

It was bitterly cold but the scenery was lovely and surprisingly varied. I like this old house with a moat.

Took a few days off work last week to go exploring near Avebury again. On the second day I walked to Devizes which I thought would be interesting but turned out to be rather dull. The main attraction seems to be the huge flight of locks on the canal, but that was a way out the western side of town and I didn’t have time to visit.

But I did have time to visit Silbury hill, which I’ve only ever seen from a distance before. It’s another neolithic monument thing near Avebury.

And also the West Kennet Long Barrow. Which you can go inside with the help of some skylights added by the Victorians.

Unfortunately at the same time a hurricane was passing over which meant it was incredibly windy. Oh, and the SUN TURNED RED!

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It’s been a whole year since I last went to Oslo and another work trip was probably a bit overdue. I flew out on Sunday morning so I had a whole afternoon to do some sightseeing. Unfortunately I’ve pretty much exhausted the sightseeing opportunities in Oslo so I had to go back to one I enjoyed from my first visit in October 2009: the Norwegian folk museum.

It’s a large open air museum with traditional houses taken from all over Norway. Most of them have grass roofs like this. I thought it might be somewhere to keep the animals in winter but someone pointed out that was pretty stupid.

I also found this traditional wooden church that we missed last time.

Unfortunately the weather on my three working days was totally miserable: cold and raining all the time. And it was just like that when I got back to England too.

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The doof.me.uk content engine seems to have ground of a halt as of late. Partly because I’ve been doing some boring things at the weekend, and partly because I had a running/gym induced leg injury and the physio wanted me to rest it a bit. Anyway, I did manage to get out last Saturday and do a walk from Tring to Dunstable.

Towards Ivinghoe Beacon

This seems to a pretty optimal route for the area: the scenery was excellent almost the whole way. Except for a slightly crummy bit skirting round the edge of Whipsnade Zoo. Although I did see a kangaroo.