Rushmere Country Park to Leighton Buzzard

When looking for a convenient walk for me to use with two friends, we stumbled on this delightful short walk, in principle a subset of the route we followed on 22nd May 2016 - though we couldn't find the route between the Grand Union Canal and Rushmere on that occasion, but we got it right today! It was mid-afternoon before we set off and I was slightly anxious that we might not manage to complete it in daylight, but we needn't have worried.

We parked one car in the Tesco car park in Leighton Buzzard (SP915250) and drove the other one the short distance back to the Rushmere Country Park (the parking charge here is £3, payable on departure from the park - and note that you need to exact money; the carpark itself is close to the visitor centre and I'm guessing that the grid reference is something like SP913284). We found our way back to the Greensand Ridge Walk and followed this on an undulating course through the trees, resplendent in their autumn colours.

We left the country park and turned left onto a road for a short distance, then we crossed another road at a cross roads and took a path back into more trees - delightful. We emerged onto the meadow where we had rejoined the correct route back in May 2016. We had to choose whether to turn right across the meadow to the road (where we had come from last time), to turn left into more woodland, or to take a path straight ahead. We chose the left had route as this seemed closest to what the map showed, and in fact there was a Greensand Ridge Walk sign a few metres down this route. However, I think the "straight ahead" route would have been better; after scrambling up and down through the trees, our route joined it, and it looked to be an easier path.

We continued straight ahead through the woodland and our path became a track, with good views towards the canal and railway, and rolling countryside beyond. We reached a house and slightly afterwards took a path which descended onto and then crossed open ground.

There were several walkers and runners about, so clearly there was going to be a way out at the other end, hopefully onto the canal. We meandered our way across the slightly buddy ground to a footbridge over a stream, then continued next to a drainage ditch, complete with swan. Eventually we reached a section of boardwalk, close to the canal but the other side of a hedge from it. We followed the boardwalk, parallel with the towpath for several hundred metres, then emerged at a kissing gate close to the bridge over the canal by The Globe pub. It turns out that when we were walking in the opposite direction back in May last year, we had not started looking for the turn off from the canal soon enough. Mystery solved!

It was a lovely sunny early autumn early afternoon and The Globe and towpath were busy. We had an enjoyable short walk along the canal back back to the car in Leighton Buzzard.