Cook's Wharfe, Pitstone to site of Great Train Robbery

Our plan for today was to complete the "gap" in our walk along the Grand Union Canal through Buckinghamhire - it wasn't a big gap, but I had struggled to find any parking, so I couldn't see any ways of completing this leg in the limited time available and without repeating the walk into Leighton Buzzard along the Two Ridges Link. However Richard, who had found the parking spot at Cook's Wharfe (SP927162) used last week and this, also came up trumps with a lay-by next to the railway bridge at SP916008, to the north of Mentmere and the west of Slapton, about half a mile west of Bridge 118, where we joined the canal when on the Two Ridges Walk in July 2016. Then we realised that this isn't just any railway bridge - it's where the Great Train Robbery took place in 1963. Richard's Mum Diana, who came to our house for lunch yesterday, remembered very well what the bridge looked like from the media coverage at the time, and it doesn't look too different now from how it looked 55 years ago.

The weather for the walk was also better than we'd feared. We woke to a dry, sunny day but as we left Norfolk it started to snow. Fortunately, by the time we had parked one car at "Train Robbers' Bridge" and driven to Cook's Wharfe, the precipitation had stopped and it stayed dry all afternoon, with quite a lot of sunshine. It was however rather cold and I don't think I'd have wanted to be out walking for much longer.

We passed under the attractive bridge at Cook's Wharfe and then almost immediately under the West Coast Mainline; we then stayed to the east of the railway line until reunited with it at Train Robbers' Bridge.

As we continued along the canal we had good views to Ivinghoe Beacon and an attractive ridge of the Chilterns, and the canal was gradually descending as we walked to the north, with a series of locks frequently located just before bridges in a rather picturesque way.

After Horton Wharf farm (lots of seagulls attracted by silage in the farmyard) we swapped maps from OS Explorer Sheet 181 (Chiltern Hills North) to Sheet 192 (Buckingham & Milton Keynes); a fitting end to this stage of our adventure on the Grand Union Canal as by the end of the walk we'd walked right across Sheet 192 by the canal.

For now, we just stayed by the canal for about a kilometre, through rather flatter countryside, to Bridge 118 to the west of Slapton. We left the canal here, passing a "Two Ridges Walk" sign, a nice reminder that we'd been here before, and took a grassy track alongside the canal and then west along a field edge to the B488. The West Coast Mainline was clearly visible in front of us, with trains passing every couple of minutes - until I wanted to photograph them! We crossed the road and continued the short distance back to the waiting car. Our destination today, after collecting the other car, was the Milton Keynes South West Premier Inn.

Following leg on Grand Union Canal Walk