The muddy path from the Dutchman car park

I had planned to do this walk with my wife and let the little group we walk with each month do a proper walk in the hills. They decided that we should all walk together and we all met at 10.30 in the "Dutchman" car park in Bishop Wood at map ref. SE 560332.

This is my first walk of 2008 and I'm still limited to short flat routes, but there's a chance of some minor key-hole surgery on my heart in a couple of months, so things may start to improve.

A fallen tree left to rot enriching the whole habitat

Making our way to the edge of Bishop Wood

The path soon turned round to head northeast and we continued in this direction crossing a broad forest track at right angles, until we reached the edge of the wood at around map ref. SE563337.

The woodland is owned by the Forestry Commission and is managed for public access (see their web site). We set off on a muddy path from the car park heading east.

Making our way to the edge of Bishop Wood

We followed a well walked path around the edge of the wood for almost 2km to map ref. SE 554350 at the junction with a wide forest track. There was a heap of logs there so we chose one each to sit on for our lunch break. After our break we continued around the edge of the wood to map ref. SE 551345 on one of the Forestry Commission's access roads into the wood.

A pleasant stroll around the edge of Bishop wood

A pleasant stroll around the edge of Bishop wood

Our lunch break on a handy heap of logs

A cleared strip of land beside the railway at the edge of Bishop Wood

I must admit that I had not looked at the map since we set off so it was my own fault for trying to be too clever. We walked along the grass verge of the road for about 250m to map ref. SE 554334, where we should have met the road. We crossed the road and walked along the track opposite to map ref. SE 553332. Here we turned right to follow the track to the railway at map ref. SE 549331.

We walked along this access road for about 450m to map ref. SE 554342. Here we turned left off the acess road onto a footpath through the trees (this was a mistake - we should have continued for another 150m and then turned left along a path which would have brought us out to a road at map ref. SE 554334). We continued along this path to a woodland track and then along the track to a road at map ref. 552334. We had clearly met the road at the wrong place because there was no track opposite to go down.

Bishop Wood near the railway

Two of many bat boxes in Bishop Wood

I was in no condition to run 3 or 400m back to get my photo. We followed a path out to the edge of the wood and continued along the path back to the road opposite the car par where we had started. The whole route had been about 7.5km and at my leisurely pace it had taken us almost 3 hours.

We followed the path beside the railway for about 600m to map ref. SE 551326. I was hoping for a good photo of a train but none came. We walked along the track away from the railway to map ref. SE 556325 and when the railway was well out of sight we heard the sound of trains approaching in both directions.

Path leading back to the Dutchman car park