Harepp two

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Harepp here.

We walked this route starting from Harlow on a sunny Sunday after days of rain. It was muddy in places but not as bad as I had expected. The first half of the route runs through Harlow but, apart from the short stretch around the bus station, is not at all urban being mostly through green areas and some low rise suburban residential streets.
This route still indicates crossing Fourth Avenue where there is no pedestrian crossing. This is a busy fast dual carriageway but if you continue along it about 50 metres there are steps down to an underpass and you can track back to the route easily.
A few of the paths are not well signposted. The first of these was from Three Horseshoes Road where you need to follow the right bank of the stream. Likewise the wiggle at the end of Markwell Wood is a little confusing as it seems like you will end up back where you started. From here on the signposting is quite variable.
Mostly the walking is along the side of woodland and through farmed fields. Between Epping Green and Epping Upland the paths are hard to see as they diagonally cross the fields – funnily enough looking back from Cobbins Brook the path was much clearer so if you are travelling the opposite way this should be easier.
The short stretch along Epping Road from the churchyard is not pleasant. You are walking into oncoming traffic on a nominal pavement which is a white line painted on the road about a foot from a wall in places and it is hard to see traffic coming as it is obscured by the wall. When we walked there was a fair amount of fast moving traffic. Then you need to cross a junction as the traffic is turning right.
From here the route is quite straightforward although at one point the way marker was lying in the long grass beside the path.
When you reach the High Street in Epping there are plenty of places to get food and drink but not when you get to the underground station at the end of the route (there is sometimes a kiosk open). Although we didn’t see any in Harlow I imagine there are places around the bus station area.
This route wouldn’t be suitable for pushchairs or bikes.

This is a lovely route, although near the start it goes past a shopping centre with a bus station. It's a bit run down. Soon after that you can follow Todd Brook for a while. Unless you're a horse, you'll have to divert to the cycling path though after a file. There is then a section through the town, with some parks in between that were rather busy on my sunny day. After a while it turns agrarian, and you'll have to cross some fields diagonally. It was hard work as it was just plowed, but at least not muddy in most places. Just before Epping you pass a farm, where it was suddenly very muddy. The short section into town was pleasant.

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