Walking: Wytham Woods
Jan. 5th, 2020 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartI'd hoped to get a few walks in over the Christmas and New Year break, but the weather was mostly grey and dreary at best and often damp and drizzly (the few brighter days all turned out to be days when pre-existing plans meant that we couldn't go out for a walk), so walking didn't seem all that appealling. I did want to get at least a bit of fresh air and daylight before going back to work tomorrow, though, so we made the effort to go to Wytham for a walk round the woods, hoping the going wouldn't be too bad.
Sadly, although the main paths were OK, once we ventured off onto the side-paths the going became very muddy underfoot and quite slippery. After a difficult climb up a muddy slope to return to the path running from the car park to Eynsham we decided to head back rather than pressing on, so in the end we only walked just over three miles (and the fact that it took nearly an hour and a half to do that says at lot about just how hard the going was). It was good to get out, but I think I need to recalibrate my expectations for winter walks after last year's dry winter, which made it a lot easier to keep walking all winter than it's turning out to be this year.
Sadly, although the main paths were OK, once we ventured off onto the side-paths the going became very muddy underfoot and quite slippery. After a difficult climb up a muddy slope to return to the path running from the car park to Eynsham we decided to head back rather than pressing on, so in the end we only walked just over three miles (and the fact that it took nearly an hour and a half to do that says at lot about just how hard the going was). It was good to get out, but I think I need to recalibrate my expectations for winter walks after last year's dry winter, which made it a lot easier to keep walking all winter than it's turning out to be this year.
