September 2016 Ramble – Along the oldest road

Once again the weather smiled on the 11 Ramblers who braved the throng at Euston Station for the short ride to Tring, as it so often does for this last-Saturday-in-September outing . A slight delay for a laggard arrivee brought the number to an old-fashioned non baker’s dozen, and then we were off on an …

April 2016 Ramble – A lovely Palmeresque Spring outing

The great landscape painter Samuel Palmer would have loved this beautiful day out in the Darent Valley that he touched with visionary magic in the years 1826 to 1836 in his pictures of its woods and hills turned into an earthly paradise. So it was too for the select band who ventured out on the …

January 2016 Ramble – Walking the Meridian Line

The Thames is always beckoning for these New Year Walks, an easy option if the trains happen to be disrupted by snow or storms. They weren't, but habit grips hard, so for this New Year 2016 ramble we approached the river from Blackheath and Greenwich rather than (as previously) starting riverside and staying there. A …

September 2015 Ramble – A Goldilocks Outing

It was a glorious day. And a wonderful walk, among the best we have ever had, people said. After a summer and early autumn of chill and downpours, the Last Saturday of September behaved as it normally does, delivering almost perfect Goldilocks walking weather: not too hot and not too cold. Ten old faithfuls (some …

April 2015 Ramble – Greenwoods, Bluebells, Blue Skies

It was not a prepossessing start. Rain sprinkles and clouds all over the forecast as we set off. As we waited under the canopy at London Bridge station, we wondered if it might not be better to go home at 10am and write a pretext report of the walk and pretend that the pictures did …

January 2015 Ramble – On The Towpath

Good things are sometimes there under your nose. As the famous graphito at Paddington Station used to say: "Far Away is Close at Hand".  So it proved on the 2015 ORRA New Year Ramble: so unadventurous that it needed no bus train or tube for most of us to reach the starting point: the Regents …

September 2014 Ramble – Mole Valley

A select few gathered at Victoria station on Saturday 27th September to set off to Dorking for the final ORRA walk of the year along part of the Mole Valley and the Greensand way at the foot of Box Hill. The going was pretty level at the start and although cloudy, it was a warm and …

April 2014 Ramble – A Very Stylish Ramble

Never before have we embarked on a walk with no pub in the middle; that lack of respite and sustenance may have deterred some of the more faithful usual Ramblers. Others were still lingering abroad after Easter or otherwise disengaged. But – undeterred by a gloomy previous day and an uninspiring weather forecast – a …

January 2014 Ramble – Walk on the Wild Side

Curdling the blood seems to be the main aim of the Met weather forecasters these days as they go about their appointed task. Even so, despite a week of dire warnings about dreadful conditions for the ORAA 2014 New Year Ramble, 20 brave walkers assembled in the shadow of the Monument close to Pudding Lane …

April 2013 Ramble – Rustle of Spring

A walk of (part) broken promises: not quite Spring, not quite Bluebell Time, not quite Kent (turned out to be East Sussex). But pretty wonderful, nevertheless. The weather forecast had been dubious, the Met staff nowadays relishing their power to Make Your Flesh Creep. They were wrong. The weather was chilly but blue skies almost …