Orpington to Knockholt

Thank you Flamingo Hiker and Delphine for responding. My GPS data was from a Garmin Epix which has multi-band, multi satellite GNSS navigation; in independent tests and from my practical experience it's normally pretty accurate so I'd stand by both the elevation and the distance. I previously had an older Garmin which was notoriously inaccurate in trees so that may well be the issue here. I also think that if a walk is advertised as being from a station to a station, then the distance should be from and to those two points. The way it is written is from Orpington Station to the pub with the route to get home in inverted commas, almost as an afterthought.

I also really don't think there are enough instructions to get you safely through the woodland paths. I struggled in High Elms and Chelsfield Woods where there are numerous forks where it is not clear which way is straight on; similarly on the footpath after Snag Lane where there is a point with local footpath signs in both directions. As another example, on the exit from the High Elms woods (at what I know as Pylon Hill), the instruction says, "follow the footpath going across a field" - there are two clear footpaths running in different directions along the edges of the field but no visible footpath across the middle. The GPX track requires you to walk across the uneven vegetation rather than on a footpath, and it is only over the brow of the hill that you can see the exit.

Lastly the issue of safety. It's obviously a personal matter for the walker whether they find narrow country lanes with blind bends and speeding cars dangerous or not, but there are significant sections where that was the case on the day I walked it and there were sometimes alternative footpaths available. For me, by far the worse point was Hewitts Roundabout on the stretch from the pub to the station. The issue with this area is that cars are either coming off the M25 motorway or about to enter it, so travelling quite quickly (I use that roundabout a lot; I've never seen a pedestrian trying to cross) and you have to cross two lanes of traffic on on each of three roads (each with 40 or 50 mph speed limits but with cars in reality travelling quicker) to reach the comparative safety of Wheatsheaf Hill (although even this has no pavement). As a runner, I can move fairly quickly but it's not something I'd wish to repeat in a hurry. There are several other crossings of fast moving A roads (one on the A21 near Green Street Green not even mentioned), but at least there are traffic refuges in those locations so it's only one lane of traffic to cross but still moving in excess of 40 mph.

I've also just spotted one other error, "And as it is on the TFL network, no train tickets are needed", which seems to imply that travel is free which is only the case for the minority who have concessionary travel passes as Knockholt is the last station in the TfL area. For anyone else, they will need train tickets in the normal way.

Many thanks, I hope that this is helpful.

Dear Offroadrunner,

Thank you for taking the time to write your feedback on my walk. They are always helpful for me to improve my walk descriptions and accuracy.

I agree with you, I might have been ahead of myself when ranking it an "easy" walk. I saw Delphine already changed it in the description, and I will also do the same on my site.

The distance and altitude are taken from the GPS data when I did this walk, I am therefore confused to read that your data are showing otherwise or even that you found some places dangerous. As a female hiker and a petite person, I am one who cares about safety and would not put myself or others in any dangerous situation.

When it comes to the football field, I am as well familiar with the place as I have been there many times when the practice games take place on the weekend. This is why I called it a football field. I will review the description to add this is a practice area for football games. Thank you for pointing it out.

Thank you for pointing out that the words "country road" are not the correct choice to describe the path. Please note that English is not my native language, so I am trying my best. Thank you for your understanding.

I appreciate and acknowledge your deception as you did not find what you were expecting on this walk. However, please note that I am just a walker sharing my walks and experiences of London and its surroundings during her spare time.

Thank you again for your feedback and contribution.

Kind regards

The Flamingo Hiker

Hi Offroadrunner,

Thank you for taking the time to write this feedback. It is really insightful. I am the one who moderated that specific walk and yes, I agree, I should have suggested a 'moderate to difficult level' to the author.

As you might know, each walk publicly shared on Visorando has been kindly described and submitted to our team by individual walkers. We are a participative-based community. Thanks to the contributor you can find many walking ideas all over the world.

Each walk goes through a moderation process where a team of volunteers and myself, read and edit each walk before publication following quality guidelines. Then, regular feedback (like you just did), helps to keep walks up to date and adjust the content when needed. We ask walkers (when possible) to suggest any alternative or improvement to the description when they finish the walk so others can enjoy it in a better way or we can see with the author what we can do about it.

For your information, The Flamingo Hiker is a young lady living in London (I am sure she will reply to you here) and not in Alsace. She walks each route before she shares it on her personal blog and Visorando. We are quite strict with copyright or when we see submitted walks that have not been personally walked.
Of course, when the dedicated team moderates the walks, we use maps as we read the description trying to make sure it is accurate and possible to follow. However, some details shared in the description show they really walked it. Feel free to share your own route with us so you can experience the whole process.

Also, could you please :
- suggest any add-on description or alternative for this walk to help the author and other walkers?
- share the GPX file with me so we can see how to explain the gap you mentioned in terms of elevation and distance ? (You just need to upload the GPX on your personal profile via the walking route planner as it seems that you haven't recorded/followed the route with the Visorando app)

Looking forward to reading from you soon I stay at your disposal for any further questions.

Enjoy your walks

Kind regards

Date of walk : 11/03/23
Clarity of route description : ★☆☆☆☆ Very disappointing
Clarity of route map : ★★★★☆ Good
Walk interest : ★★☆☆☆ Disappointing

Advertised as an "easy" walk of 16.78km with 214m of gain, it's actually 18.85km with 393m and far from easy. In fact it takes in the infamous "Pylon Hill" which is such a feature of a tough, local multi-terrain race in High Elms Country Park that it features on their logo! Part of the reason for the distance discrepancy is that it seems to end at a pub with the instructions to the stated end point at the station (which include one of those narrow lanes and the really treacherous navigation across the fast A225 and A21 roads that arrive or leave Hewitt's Roundabout) tagged on as an afterthought, but not included in the overall distance. It's difficult to explain the error in the elevation though as all the climbing occurs much earlier.

I found the walk description to be very poor and difficult to follow with many turnings not mentioned or difficult to identify and I had to rely on the GPX track on my phone. Despite a long stretch in High Elms, there is absolutely no mention of it in the description for example and the path there has so many undescribed twists and turns that it's difficult to know whether you're on track still. There is a lot of tarmac in the first half along some quite major roads, much walking along narrow lanes with blind bends and fast moving traffic; also some quite dangerous road crossings of major A roads approaching the M25.

I also noticed that roads through a housing estate were described as a "country road" and the instruction "straight across" clearly wasn't, although it may have looked like that on a map. I know Goddington Park reasonably well, but the "top left corner of the football field" is not really very helpful when there are about a dozen matches taking place which occurs on both Saturday and Sunday every weekend in my experience. Which does make me wonder, given the team in the Alsace, whether this route was designed remotely rather than by actually walking it.

I don't want to be negative, but this route is not well served by the description and is actually quite dangerous in places. Anyone expecting an easy walk is going to have a shock coming!