Look What I Found on a Country Walk!

I have a friend that organizes a group of us to go on country walks.

It is awesome, I don't have to organize anything and I just show up at the train station to follow the group!

Downside: I never really know where I am.

Sometimes I will take pictures of signs so that I can maybe figure out where I've been.

This time we were on the Ridgeway Path. I have a picture of the sign, so I must have been there.

We walked through rolling hills and had some great vista views.

We saw some local wildlife.

An interesting thing about walking in the British countryside is that there are ancient paths with public "rights of way" that walk through private property. (Being Canadian, I consider anything older than a hundred or two hundred years to be "ancient".)

On this particular walk we walked past a HUGE house.

And then we found these signs.

Well, that's interesting. I wonder why.

And then, as we walked across the impressive driveway we saw this.

Note the big balustrades at the gate.

Well, this is getting very interesting....

SURPRISE!

Turns out, we were walking on paths through Chequers, the official country residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

It was so bucolic, serene and peaceful, and we're just strolling by. It is hard to believe this is an official residence of the Prime Minister.



However, I suspect our entire moves were being very closely watched. And, I also suspect had we veered off the beaten path we would not have got very far.