Dollis Valley Greenwalk, Part 2

Yesterday was a rather gloomy day, but it was fairly dry in the morning so I decided to take a walk. I wanted to finish the Dollis Valley Greenwalk, which you may remember I started at the beginning of the month.

I'd already walked the first half, from Golders Green to Totteridge & Whetstone. So I took the bus and tube up to where I'd ended, picked up the trail again and kept heading north. Almost immediately it became a very grassy walk through parkland and past uninteresting housing estates. I encountered damp dog-walkers, frolicking muddy canines and kids on bicycles.

I didn't find much to photograph -- even Dollis Brook was narrow and unimpressive along this stretch.

Eventually things got even more rural and I wasn't seeing any houses. The path turned westward and I was walking through fields and along hedgerows. The Greenwalk joined the London Loop, the large circular path around outer London that I walked several years ago. So I'd been on this section of the path before, and I kept waiting to recognize something familiar -- but I never did. There just aren't many landmarks.

This is a cuckoo flower (Cardamine pratensis), also called lady's smock, mayflower and a bunch of other names. I found clumps of them all along the more rural parts of my walk. I also came across a field of yellow-blooming cowslip, and saw lots of buttercups, wild garlic and other spring flowers.

Eventually the section of Dollis Brook I was following was mostly buried in shrubbery and hedgerows, and in the rare moments that I saw it, it was no more than a rivulet. I came to the end of the walk at the edge of Totteridge Fields, and crossed some busy roads and adjacent farmland (on a public path) to reach The Ridgeway in Mill Hill.

The Ridgeway, as you might have guessed from the name, runs along a high point and offers expansive views across North London, including Wembley Stadium in the distance. (Similar to the view I got from nearby Sunny Hill Park a couple of years ago.)

In Mill Hill I came across an inviting-looking pub called the Three Hammers, so I stopped in and had a pint and a hamburger for lunch. They have a "Psychic Night" on Wednesdays -- an interesting alternative to the typical pub quiz for bringing in patrons! I predict I won't go.

From there I caught a bus to the Mill Hill East station. I thought it would be fun to take the tube from there, thus passing over the arched brick viaduct I walked beneath on my first leg of the Greenwalk earlier this month. My plan was to make a video to share. But to be honest, the whole thing was such a non-event -- I was over the viaduct before I realized it, and it didn't seem that high up from the train. Oh well.

I took the tube to Finchley and then caught a bus home from there. Altogether I think I walked five or six miles. Dollis Valley done!