Marlow Common - Lower Woodend - Bockmer End - Pullingshill Wood

24 July 2005

• Total distance : 2.5 miles, all on metalled surface.
• Start point : Beside the road in Pullingshill Wood, SU823868.
• Weather : Mild, dull, in a dry spell following a wet morning.
• Temperature at start 17C.
• Muddiness rating (*=dry, *****=awful) * No mud anywhere, which is why I chose this walk.
• People passed : One lady on a horse, plus half a dozen vehicles.
• Camera : Olympus C-5060W. Images taken before deletions = 80.

The rain clouds that had lain like a grey fleece over the country began to drift unconvincingly away to the East, but a day of rain would be percolating its way through the huge beeches for many hours yet. Strangely the woods echoed with the hoots and peeps of young children, their parents probably aiming to exhaust their offspring, making the most of a rare dry interlude in what was proving a relentlessly wet July.

Marlow Common rivals Burnham Beeches in its popularity as a great place for a Sunday afternoon constitutional. It's barely a mile from the centre of Marlow, there's plenty of parking beside the road, and the beech woods are some of the most beautiful anywhere. The wooded areas are owned by the Woodland Trust, so they're open to the public and kept in good condition. All through the trees there are pits and hillocks, exciting terrain for energetic youngsters, especially when covered in crisp autumn leaves, but created for more sinister reasons at the start of the first world war, when soldiers used the area to practice trenching. Locals still refer to the area as Marlow Trenches.

I'd cautiously unburdened myself of my crutches a couple of weeks earlier but was still nervous about any slippery surface, so I followed the road to Lower Woodend and then turned towards Bockmer End. A small fox trotted along the road, heading in the same direction but a hundred yards ahead, seemingly unconcerned by my presence.

I stopped to photograph some insects on thistle-heads in the hedgerow. As usual the camera's decision on what should be in focus drove me nuts. It flipped arbitrarily between the flowerhead an inch in front of the lens, and the top of Ashley Hill five miles away. To be honest I think most compact cameras suffer from this malaise, whereas digital SLR's generally indicate what they've selected as the focal point, and I now consider that essential for close-ups.

Just as I switched off the camera a leaner, more wiry fox dropped out of the hedge alongside me. He looked away from me, presumed the coast was clear and lollopped casually across the road. Halfway across he took a look to his right, saw me two yards away and had the fright of his life. He was gone in an instant, darting noiselessly through the scrub. I don't know who was more surprised.

After climbing the hill from Homefield Wood to Bockmer End I paused, and counted 27 rabbits in one field, many of them plump and dozily chewing grass within a stone's throw of the gate. Now if I was a fox this would be the equivalent of All-You-Can-Eat-for-a-Fiver night at the Cookham Tandoori and I'd be up here licking my paws instead of risking my life padding around the byways. Maybe they feel they have to do it the hard way, or maybe they're just fed up with the taste of rabbit.

After another climb into Pullinghill Woods I reached the car, pleased with my first excursion for four months, and pleased too with my timing because the rain was starting to fall once again.

Map> MarlowCommonmap

Choose another walk> TheWalks

Woodland Trust website> http://www.wt-woods.org.uk/pullingshillwoodandmarlowcommon/description.asp

-- RodBird - 30 Jul 2005