Hawley walk

It was a perfect day for our walk around the Hawley Woods and Minley area on Thursday 22nd May, and a good number turned out,
21 in all.

Billed as a walk in the footsteps of James Bond we saw a number of sites where the opening sequence of Die Another Day was filmed. Paul, our walk leader, showed us
the Hawley Bear Pit, a large sany depression, which was turned into the North Korean military site for
the film. He passed around some pictures of the site as it had looked during filming and explained how
the very heavy stone barriers used in the film were actually made of cardboard - filming is so often all about illusion!

On the day of the walk there were no tanks or foreign military personnel, no film crews and definitely no James Bond. But then we were neither shaken nor stirred because the day was all about  walking and the local scenery, and the walk was most enoyable and
the scenery very interesting.

From the open scrubby areas of Hawley Common we continued on through vast open grasslands by Minley Manor - an incredible
building with a most amazing view. We then walked through woodland, where we came across a magnificent ancient Beech tree, estimated to be 300-400 years old and which we ‘officially’ measured
as four hugs around the girth.

We passed an old Bronze Age burial mound - although it was not
obvious - saw a bridge in what appeared to be a most unlikely spot (apparently it was built to take a railway line so that the materials
to build Minley Manor could be transported to the site more easily). 

The final stretch was along the heathland before we returned to
our starting point.

Altogether we walked six miles and had a most enjoyable morning.