Evening circular walk - Eagle and Hollow Ponds
At 7.30pm on Thursday 1st June, which was a very warm summer's evening, 12 little EFOGees set off for a walk. 12 little EFOGees also returned. Just not all together.
Our route was from ROVSCO Hall, around the Snaresbrook section of Epping Forest, finishing at the pub close to where we started.
Eagle Pond is currently home to at least 50 swans and many of them swam alongside us, as we walked up Snaresbrook Road, presumably hoping for food. As we turned in to the forest, some of the group witnessed nature's less attractive side as a few swans attacked a lone duckling in the pond's shallows until its parent arrived to rescue it. Earlier in the day, when I'd recced the route, the entire path in this area was full of swans and I'd had to detour into the bushes to get past, so this is clearly an area that the swans deem to be "their's". As we walked through in the evening, the ground was covered in small white feathers and we wondered if there were enough to make a pillow.
Turning on to Leyton Flats, Mat pointed out the seemingly odd twists in the branches of multiple trees and explained that these were manually encouraged as, when chopped down, the right-angled planks of wood could be easily fitted in to corners on ships with no need for joins.
Reaching a pool, largely hidden by reeds, we then followed the undulating paths that encircle Hollow Ponds, walking all the way round. Possibly too occupied looking towards the many flag irises in the water, one of our group walked into a broken tree branch that was jutting out just at head height. Whilst his scalp was being attended to, we realised that some of our walkers weren't with us. Richard and Trevor set off to retrace our steps but, unable to find them, returned to join the main group. As we were doing a well-walked circuit, that the group knows well (and don't actually need a walk leader for), we weren't concerned and assumed we'd meet them coming the other way round. We were almost at the entrance to Whipps Cross Hospital but, having determined that medical assistance wasn't required for a graze, we carried on. Crossing in front of the Boat House, we continued on the path that hugs the water's edge, avoiding the road and also remaining in the shade, until we reached the wide open space of Leyton Flats from where we headed north-east to a small pool, that leads off the bigger water of Hollow Ponds, and then followed the path to the right taking us back out on to Snaresbrook Road.
As we approached The Eagle Pub for a well-deserved, cooling drink, our missing walkers emerged from the right. It's widely joked that a walk leader can lose 10% of their group but I'm not sure that 25% is acceptable so it was relief to see them. And we did all arrive at the pub at the same time. It was an eventful evening, but perhaps I'll stick to running evening quizzes in future.
Jill S. 19th June 2023