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Shotover Overshot (Oxford to Aylesbury — or to Cambridge?)

Saturday 21 June

!!! The local walk “From Mr Toad to Mr Poirot” is postponed. !!!

New walk:
It's that time of year when, once again, intrepid walkers will have the opportunity to walk to Shotover and beyond, together with the Cambridge University Rambling Club (CURaC).

The walk starts in central Oxford, and in the course of just 5km ascends the 171-metre summit of Shotover Hill, once the site of the main road to London but now a country park. But not content with merely climbing Shotover, we will push on for another 32km, on minor roads and through fields close to the course of the river Thame, as far as Aylesbury. There our local walk ends with an optional pub supper and the bus back to Oxford. There are also a variety of shorter distances available (approx 9, 14, 16, 18, 27 or 33 km); note that some of these would include a short unaccompanied walk to the bus (directions provided).

For particularly intrepid walkers, however, there are options to walk further. Much further, in fact. The walk that CURaC will be undertaking is their annual 129km walk from Oxford to Cambridge, the Varsity March, of which the 37km joint walk is only the first section. After the pub stop in Aylesbury, they will be continuing walking through the night, through most or all of Sunday, and possibly the small hours of Monday. No sleep, just walking! So if you have a desire to scale Telegraph Hill (a whole 10m higher than Shotover), to see a water tower north of Luton early on Sunday morning and possibly the church clock at Granchester standing at ten to three on Monday morning, and to reach out a weary hand to touch the door of Great St Mary's in Cambridge, then you are welcome to join them in this mad but rewarding venture. Be aware that the Varsity March as a whole is not an OUWC event, but there are likely to be a few OUWC members joining CURaC this year.

Continuing beyond Aylesbury is not to be taken lightly, though. In particular, although there are various dropping-out options during the Sunday, the Saturday night section after Aylesbury is at least another 34km until the next convenient end point. Therefore, anyone considering walking beyond Aylesbury MUST contact Steven Smith (sgs30[at]cantab.net) in advance.

Provided that you are intending to walk no further than Aylesbury, you are welcome just to turn up on the day.

And if you don't want to overshoot Shotover, that's fine too. There are buses back from Thornhill Park and Ride...