If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
Day 10 23/6/05 Field End to Flaunden (6.5 miles each way)
Parked in side street on very edge of Hemel Hempstead.
Again this was a very hot day (27-29C forecast), so I took lots of water and planned on cutting the walk short at Bovingdon if the heat was too much. As it was, I felt fine, and it was a surprisingly good walk. I hadn’t been looking forward to it too much because of the section through the outskirts of Hemel Hempstead. In fact, this part only took about 45 minutes each way, and a lot of it was in a green lane where the hedges met overhead, forming a nice dark, cool ‘tunnel’. Beyond Hemel, the walk was an absolute joy. Most of the footpath to Bovingdon seemed to be beside a wood or else a thick hedge, and the path stretched on for almost two miles. It was then two miles more to Flaunden, through a variety of fields (containing crops, sheep, cows, horses) in seemingly idyllic countryside (perhaps the sun did get to my head after all!).
Looking towards Bovingdon Church 26/10/05
The section beyond Hemel was completely unknown to me (as would be all the rest of the walk until I reached Aldbury), so that was maybe why I enjoyed it so much - it certainly made me look forward even more to the rest of the Chiltern Way.
Total distance: 72.5 miles each way