Walking The Chiltern Way Part 2 - Cow Roast to Chalk Hill

Start: Cowroast Lock, 46 Wharf Ln, Tring HP23 5RE
Finish: White Lion Pub, Watling Street, Houghton Regis, Dunstable, LU6 1RS
Distance: 21.9 km (13.6 Miles)
Elevation change: +314m / -315m. Net -1m
GPX File: get via Buy Me a Coffee
Other Routes Touched (walk): Grand Union Canal Towpath, Rangers’ Ramble, Foresters’ Walk, Ashridge Boundary Trail, Hertfordshire Way, Icknield Way Path
Other Routes Touched (cycle): Chilterns Cycleway, Berkhamsted Route 6
Pubs / Cafes on route: Bridgewater Arms, Little Gadesden / National Trust Cafe at Dunstable Downs
Maps: OS Explorer Map (181) Chiltern Hills North and OS Explorer Map (193) Luton and Stevenage
Links: Chiltern Way (Chiltern Society), Cow Roast, National Trust Ashridge Estate, Ashridge, Little Gaddesden, Whipsnade Zoo, Whipsnade, Dunstable Downs National Trust

For our latest Winter Solstice walk we picked up the Chiltern Way from where we left off a year ago. Cow Roast Lock at 08:00 was a bit brighter and significantly less rainy than how we left it in 2019.

As we got into the first hour of the walk Brian and I reflected on some of the changes in a weird year of Covid-19. For the first time since I started my Solstice Walks I wasn’t doing it to unwind from my usual year-end work stress. I hadn’t been to an office since mid-February, had no work-related travel and very little commuting. This gave me a chance to build in more positive daily habits and have more control over my working environment. Year-end at work was still very busy, but now I felt energised rather than exhausted.

This first half of this section of the Chiltern Way was pleasant but with fewer points of interest. Fields and woodland went by in a blur as we caught up on our recent events. The route became more interesting as we ascended out of the Gade Valley after Dagnall and up toward Whipsnade. This part of the Chiltern Way converges with the Icknield Way path that I covered a few years ago in similar damp weather and muddy terrain.

We were walking between Lockdowns 2 and 3 and food stops were few and far between. Normally the Bridgewater Arms at Little Gadesden would have been open when we arrived, but we were too early for their later opening times. The National Trust Cafe at Dunstable Downs was our main hope but the Visitor Centre and Cafe were closed. We has to make do with a pasty and a coffee from the small takeaway hatch at the back. It was drizzling and freezing so we didn’t hang around for long and continued north.

Our finish point was the White Lion Pub on the A5 north of Dunstable. This felt like the obvious target as it was the starting point of our 2nd Icknield Way trip 2 years ago. As that also covered the next section of the Chiltern Way, we’ll start again from Streatley for our next Solstice walk.