A Hike around Hutton and Herongate (pay attention, don’t lose the Fred)

Shenfield Station, the end of the line (well TfL Rail anyway) was the meeting place for today’s walk. Amina, Cathy, Fred, Ken and I all met up on the train, and were then joined by Paul at Shenfield, as he was on the next train. We headed off up Mount Avenue and saw a car driving along the pavement to us, which was Peter and Annick, who had been delayed in the Remembrance Day traffic.

We had a mile or so to walk to the start point at Hutton All Saints Church, through the “Millionaire’s Row” of Hutton Mount. Part way along, we heard the loud roar of a Dakota DC-7 aircraft and two Spitfires which passed overhead (probably the ones which dropped 750,000 poppies at Dover).

We passed Hutton Hall and the church to begin the walk proper, following Church Lane before going over a muddy field. We then followed a track past farm buildings and an enormous stack of hay bales at Creasey's Farm. By now the sun was shining brightly bringing warmth and with lovely views over the Essex countryside.

We continued along field edges to enter a very muddy path through a small wood. A sign post directed us to Heron Hall, via an easily missed (which we did first time) track, guarded by a splendidly gruesome witch, hopefully just a left over from Halloween. After a short spell (witches – spell, oh forget it!) we reached Heron Hall and continued to Herongate for a late lunch stop at the pub.

However, on reaching the Green Man pub we realised there was no sign of Fred. We had lost him. After getting my lager, I joined the search party (I’ve got my priorities!). By now, he was probably wandering all alone in a muddy field. No sign of him on my search, but we had contacted him and he had missed the turn at the reservoir, and returned to re-join us, mini adventure over.

Time was drawing on, so after lunch we took a detour through Ingrave and more fields and farmland to rejoin the main road before turning off to Brentwood station through a woodland walk, arriving at the station as dusk was setting in. The total distance (including the missed turn and searching for strays) was about 9 miles. The weather had been very good, warm autumnal sunshine, we all made it back safely (even Fred), and I think we all enjoyed it, even with the mud.

Trev (pathfinder) Eley, 15th November 2019

We meet where?

Just three words, but it is an important question when we are organising a meeting-point for a walk or such.

On Lynne’s recent Sunday walk along the River Lea Navigation the instructions were to “Meet Stratford Station near cafe on ground floor”. So some of us met at the ground floor cafe within the station barriers, perhaps "near the Jubilee Line platforms", and others outside the barriers at theground floor cafe near "the stairs leading up to the bridge across to Westfield".

Maybe we should have said “Meet at O.S. Grid Reference TQ 38622 84388” rather than TQ 38627 84478. After all – as an outdoor group, with walking and hence map-reading being somewhat fundamental – that would have been a more appropriate and concise reference, wouldn’t it?

Well, of course, no. Some of us don't even have maps - and I know a lot of us can't really read them! I am not bad with maps and grid references, but to distinguish between those two cafes on a standard OS Landranger, 1:50 000 Series, map is on the edge of my capabilities. And if we’d used the International Latitude and Longtitude system – however precise it may be – we would have been advised to meet at – something like – 51º32´28.9´´N. 0º0´06.8´´W. I even had trouble finding the special characters for that, let alone trying to work it out on a map!

What about, though, “Meet at Stratford Station, at  “shapes.soft.grows” ? That would have saved some of us going to “hang.orbit.saving”. That would have got us all together pretty well right where the cafe is near the Jubilee Lines. At the very least, within a few metres.

This system – called “what3words” - can pinpoint a location to a 3m x 3m square. Anywhere. That’s pretty impressive. Increasingly, emergency services such as police, fire and ambulance are using the system to locate people trying to contact them. Epping Forest is also encouraging members of the public to use the system, to say where they are in the Forest if they have an issue. It is dependent on a mobile phone signal, though – but then an emergency call from the heart of the Forest is, anyway - and a G.P.S. signal.

The app is available for iOS as well as Android phones, is free, easy to download and easy to use. It incorporates an aerial view as well as a map view, so can be used for map-purposes as well.

I really do advise mobile phone users to download it. Hope to see you at dozen.cling.holly on a Thursday evening.

Paul Ferris. 19th September 2019

p.s. I have just realied that three characters in a well-known play could have made use of this. I have just re-read the quote, and the answer to the question of where the three shall meet is "Upon the heath". That's really not very explicit, is it?

A message from EFOG to potential Rodings Rally Contestants:

Dear Rodings Rally Contestants,

As you may recall from the 2018 Rally Report, the Rover Scouts were interested in taking over the Rally from us. Their initial response was that they could not do the Rally in 2019, because they were involved in a fundraising jamboree and would only be able to run the Rally if we organised it for them. As the Epping Forest Outdoor Group (EFOG) had retired from the Rally last year, we declined to do so.

Since then the Scouts have obviously been talking in-house, and we received a response from then to inquiries made by some of last year's contestants who wanted to know what if anything was up. Unfortunately this reply was not what we were hoping for, so at the moment the Rodings Rally is on permanent hold unless any other large and willing group of people would like to take up the challenge.

Thank you to everyone for your interest and support over the years, it is how we managed to carry on for 64 Rallys!

Best Wishes,

Susan Carroll

Administrator

Circular walk to Davy Down, Mardyke Woods and in Thames Chase

In true EFOG style we began our Saturday 17th August day by meeting for a coffee at Thurrock Garden Centre in Ockenden, and once refreshed the eight of us travelled to Davy Down car park in two cars.

The circular walk was more like a figure-of-eight, taking us through the woods at Davy Down and then through open meadows, past the water pumping station and the viaduct. Much of our walk followed the Mardyke river, where we spotted some wildlife including a Grey Heron and ducks but also some sculptures of animals, including a mammoth (which was quite hard to spot among the trees), foxes, dragonfly and heron. Most of the walk was in fields or woods but we did have a short walk on the road up to North Stifford village, passing the cricket green on the right-hand side. We then walked through the Field of Peace and alongside the Mardyke, crossed the road back into Davy Down and then over the bridge on the other side of the river and under the viaduct which serves the C2C railway. We then proceeded to walk through Brannetts Wood which is very pleasant and leafy. We returned to Davy Down along the river, across the bridge, passing the fish sculpture and over the small lake where we were able to see some Marsh Frogs taking in the sun.

We returned to Thurrock Garden Centre for a tasty lunch and a circular walk round Thames Chase Forest before finishing with a cuppa and an ice cream at the café. Thoroughly enjoyable day for Eileen, Fred, Jinan, Trevor, Sue S., Ann, Marilyn and Tina who took the pictures. This was Tina’s first walk with EFOG and hopefully the first of many.

Railway Viaduct at Davy Down

 Heading for Thames Chase Visitor Centre

 Ann W.    26th August 2019