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Small free car park just across the road from the lake and the entrance to the walk
Mainly fairly flat, mix of maintained paths, roads, and woodland trails
Two large lakes here, although not very accessible for dogs to swim and warning signs of strong underwater currents. Several smaller dips and streams around the perimeter walk.
No poo bins here
Within the walk there Is a private area of woodland that is open to the public, but will be closed for access every year on the 26th March.
If you cross the road once you're parked, then the 1st lake is right in front of you and is pretty spectacular. There are a couple of decked areas to stop and admire the views, but to start the walk just go right out of the car park, cross over the road and the paths start just along the road on the left.
Having not been here before today, based on the name I was expecting a walk around the perimeter of the lake, but that's not really the case here - the edges of the lake are very boggy with marshland so it's not easy to actually get close to the lake other than at the road where you enter, once you start the walk the paths take you more into the woodland which in itself in very pretty and there are some lovely old trees. Shortly after entering the first gate there was a small path veering off the main trail to the left leading up to the water, watch out for this as Hank was a bit excited and ran straight towards it not quite realising how marshy it was at the waters edge, he found himself flapping back towards dry land after a bit of a shock and with a filthy belly after landing in thick mud!
It's a good varied walk, having walked past the first pond follow the path and you get to a gate, going through this and left up the private road leads up towards Chingford pond which is again extremely picturesque with some stunning views but is fenced off so no access to the water. We tried to create a loop back round from there, so past the lake went left through a really beautiful pine forest section. You could just double back on yourself here for a shorter and easier walk, but we ventured further trying to make a loop and beyond the pines section it's a very indirect route, and eventually does mean walking a fair section along a road which although a country road and not very busy, I'm not always happy to walk Hank along the roads if I can avoid it.
