The earliest yawn of springtime

Springtime is just the most glorious time, isn't it?

The newness of it all, the novelty of the early flowers.  Winter wasn't even all that much of a hardship here in southern England.  The thing I had the most problem with was the darkness- if you didn't make a point of getting out, you could easily go days without getting a little daylight.  But now spring is here, and moody and damp alternates with sunny and hopeful.

Naturally, I jumped the gun and left my basil plant that had over-wintered on the window sill out too early.  I now have an ex-basil plant.

All the things you took advantage of in the cold months is now over.  Maltby Street in Bermondsey is  once again a scrum, with a tangle of beards and piercings and skinny jeans all pushing their way through the narrow alleyway, dodging harried waiters with fancy cocktails and inhaling the smells of whole roasted hogs.  Museums and restaurants are now packed, and having London to myself is a thing of the past.

Naturally, getting out into the countryside becomes a priority when the sun gets to my head.  After the mudbath of a couple weeks ago, I found a drier bit of trail...when in doubt, head for the hills!

After a train ride to Rochester, in which a hat lovingly handknit with Madeline Tosh Merino in the color Graphite was sadly left behind, we walked a stretch through the city, past adorable shops and an impressive cathedral and a Norman castle that stands guard the River Medway.  

We picked up a trail along the banks of the river, which were mudflats filled with gulls and ducks and waders.  Rather stupidly, I had doubled up on wool socks, thinking that it would be helpful in preventing blisters.  Less then two miles in and my heels looked bloody awful.  I stopped to put on the Compeed plasters that I always bring along (but never had to use!) and hoped for the best.

The North Downs Way passes over the Medway on this super motorway and highspeed rail bridge.  I really didn't mind skipping that bit of walking at all.

With the motorway behind us and occasional thunders of the train going from London to Paris at breathtaking speeds, the countryside opened up and once again we were walking in the lovely bucolic downland of Kent.  Considering this was only 45 minutes outside of London...not bad.

One notable thing:  a burial chamber on the hill, left by the ancients, the cremated remains long gone.

Rather mystifying why they would put the mile marker on a tombstone:

Really, I've only done 80 miles on this trail?  It feels like a lot more than that.  One thing I can say about this trail: it's great that it's so close to London and so easy to do stretches on the commuter rail.  Also, Surrey and Kent are both infuriatingly well served by motorways.  The trail has got some good climbs here and there, it keeps you in trees quite a lot, and there is very little chance anyone might ever get lost.  

The original plan had been to do 18 miles to Hollingbourne, but as we sat down at the pub with the obscene name for a breather I thought otherwise.  

My feet were in all sorts of agony.  New boots, the early double sock error.  Oh, what a world!  I took out the map and found a train station 4 miles closer than Hollingbourne.  I always feel like a lousy cheat when I take a shortcut or deviate from the original plan, but 14 miles is still not a bad walk.  Right?

Instead of climbing back onto the downs, we headed across the fields to the nearest train station, and let the rails take us home.

I did find a lovely little church tucked between some farms and some grand estates, which is always so charming to find.

So there.  We did our first big walk since early January.  My feet have recovered and I've been doing the fashionable thing and wearing my hiking boots around London, ignoring the fact that they don't go with a smart skirt and blouse combo.  The things I do for fashion!  

WHW Day 1: Milingavie to Drymen

There's really no better way to get to know a place then to go à pied.  I can not think of anything I'd rather do more then to take a walk outside.  The zen of moving your feet forward, slowly and deliberately, for days on end is probably the best way I know to quiet the mind and clear the head of cobwebs.  Try worrying about petty bullshite at the end of a 20 mile day.  It's impossible!  

We had toyed with the idea of doing a big Scotland trip but soon were overwhelmed by the choices, which we were spoiled by.  Scotland has serious mountains- a freak of geology means the gentle rolling hills of England and lowlands are all but a distant memory.  

I did do a more expansive Scotland trip about 10 years ago, via motorized means, with stops on the stunningly beautiful Isle of Skye, across the highlands to Inverness to hike in the lonely Caringorms, then down through Speyside to drink all the Scotch.  That was fun; I felt like I had seen quite a lot and covered ground, and had a pretty good time to boot.  I wanted to see more though, and Scotland is a place I will always be happy to return to.  That Victorian ideal of the romantic and wild highlands rings true even today.  

We had heard whispering of the West Highland Way trail all summer as we walked and bumped into other hikers.  It's by far the most popular distance walk in Scotland- it requires no camping or gear (unless you want to) and the trail covered a great deal of terrain over close to 100 miles.  We bumped into a mother-daughter team while we were doing Hadrian's Wall who told us two things:  it's fantastic, except for the fact that you shadow and A road for a great deal of it, and not to finish early in the day because you'll have nothing to do.  The highway was the most bothersome of worries, having nothing to do I scoffed at.  I am a slow-ass walker, and finishing early is never a concern.  Finishing in the dark usually is.  Plus, I'm a knitter.  I always have something to do.  

Like all or our adventures, this one was booked hastily and nearly impulsively- I found a guide book and map and I booked the rooms about a week in advance.  If it was high summer, this would have been impossible, but September is the best time to travel. 

Plus, we were going to be in Scotland for the referendum vote.  How exciting would that be?  

After a long train ride north to Glasgow, we stopped in for one last dram at my new favorite bar, The Pot Still.  They had a wall of hundreds of bottles of Scotch, most of which I had never heard of.  After a slightly glazed stare at the impossible dream wall in I was faced with, the friendly barman who happened to look like someone out of Magic Mike, ie someone who causes much blushing by just saying hello- took notice and started a chat.  He inquired about my likes and dislikes.  "Nothing peaty or too smokey" I said.  He clambered up a ladder and pulled a few bottles before pouring me a lovey dram of Glenfarclas.        

I couldn't find a room or a bunk at the trailhead in Millingavie, so we spent the night in the Glasgow train station and made the quick trip to Millingavie first thing in the morning, and soon found ourselves at the trailhead, ready for a very reasonable 12 mile hike.  

It was a Saturday, and there were quite a few other hikers milling around, ready to start.  It's hard not to be giddy before a big walk, and maybe a little nervous as well.  This was especially true since I had smartly signed on to have our bags ported from place to place.  After the aches and pains of the Coast to Coast and seeing absolutely no one on the trail with big packs, I gave Travelite a call.  You fill out a form where you plan on staying each night and like magic, your bag will be there waiting for you.  They have a van waiting at the trailhead, and I was free to walk about with just water and food and a couple spare sets of socks and a rain jacket in my pack.  Talk about freedom!

At 94 miles, this would be my biggest, longest hike to date.  We decided to put ourselves on target for a very reasonable 7 days of walking, with just one official 20-mile day as our longest slog.

So it begins.

Leaving Glasgow through a delightfully fog-laden forest made for a peaceful start.  We had discussed taking the train up the road a bit to skip the first day, which was a relatively elevation-gain free day of 12 miles.  However, it was foretold there would be a very important place to stop en-route, so we buckled down and suffered through the boring bits.

How very Scotland.

We had found a book called "Not the West Highland Way", in which the author complains about how there are so many great trails that the official WHW blows right past.  The WHW takes the easiest route from north to south, mostly following old military roads built by the Brits to have better control of the wild and rebellious highlands.  We thought to go off-trail as often as time and energy allowed, as some of the alternate routes would add a day or more to the hike or be a bit too vertigo-inducing for me to be comfortable with.

The fog soon started to burn off, leaving us to contemplate a peaceful forest.

We soon took our first off-trail miles to check out the ruins of 14th century Mugdock Castle.

In the time we had taken to walk a couple of miles off-trail, the rest of the world had caught up with us.

Sigh.  This was not a lonely trail.

We did encounter a rather eccentric fellow sitting trailside and wanting to engage passer-bys with a chat about the USMC.  When he found out we were from the states, he was overjoyed and started peppering us with all sorts of military questions with an accent so thick we questioned if he was speaking English for a second before we picked up on the delightful cadence of the thick Glaswegian he was spouting.

My one regret: we didn't go up and over the Campsies, the ridge of steep hills in the distance.  It would have made for a much longer, much more exhausting first day.  The weather was beautiful though and it's just something I should have taken initiative on.      

From the trail, you could see the tops of a stone circle left here by the ancients:

Soon, we found the turnoff for the entire reason for not skipping the first day:

Glengoyne!  One of my favorite Scotches, and in a most pastoral setting.  We took an hour off for a tour and a few drams, a sit by the waterfall for lunch before continuing at a much lazier pace.

It's a lovely place, with all sorts of good sweet smells being emitted from the vats and barrels.  We purchased a small bottle to fuel our post-walk appetite and kill a bit of pain.  It was a lovely way to spend a couple hours.  We had gotten there early in the day, but as we were leaving, we noticed the car park full of buses and vans, and vast amount of stag parties on their way to a riotous start.  After all, we were just mere miles outside of Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland.  How easy it is to forget!      

However, with my courage up, instead of rejoining the trail after lunch, I went rogue and started the long, steep climb up Dumgoyne.

Gah.  That was much, much steeper than I thought it would be.  But hey, what fun it is to go off trail, escape the crowds and take in views the rest of the through hikers won't get.

After that little adventure, the rest of the day was quite boring.  We walked with the A81 within earshot through farm fields for the next five miles until we hit Drymen, our first overnight.

Aside from the Campsies climb and Glengoyne, I could understand how this section would be considered skipable.  Pressed for time?  Easily bored?  Start further up the trail.  Hardcore?  Begin at the beginning.

Despite the warm sunny day, the geese knew what was up:

The end of the first day found as at an adorable victorian b&b just inside the Trossachs National Park.  A mile down the road was Drymen, where there were pubs and a  grocery...this was obviously a place where a great deal of people exploring the Trossachs use as a base camp, and this is where the Rob Roy Way trail begins.    

We had dinner at the Calachan, a tiny 18th c pub where we started our "haggis crawl".  Seriously, it's not that bad, tasting much like anything I've had in France when served organ meat.  When spiced correctly, it's similar to pate.  Apparently, it can not be imported to the States as "sheep lungs are unfit for human consumption".  Really?  Somehow abominations such as Twinkies and Cheese-wiz are?  Unless said sheep was a heavy smoker of Lucky Strikes, I'm pretty sure haggis could be considered heath food if you went paleo.  

There were oodles of other exhausted-looking walkers crowded in the little low-ceilinged pub, and drinking the requisite post-trail beer.      

We were exhausted (especially after all of our off-trail escapades and hill climb)  but blissfully happy to have chosen this as our trail for the week.  

Lewes

 I'm happy to report that I'm finally not completely horrified by the produce here right now.  True, most things still come shrink-wrapped in the grocery store, but the strawberries and asparagus has come bursting out of the ground flavorful and abundant.  It's been all I've cared to eat lately.  It's fantastic.  Finally, good food is here, good weather as well.  A slightly sunnier outlook on life is had.  Actually, if I could die and come back as myself, I would.

I found the most amazing little town.  It's well-known to most, as it's not particularity tiny or hard to get to.  Although, the trip there required a stop in Brighton, which is always a pleasure based on the gorgeous Victorian train station.

The iron work, the cheerful paint, the wooden train platforms.  I don't mind changing trains here at all.

We were off to Lewes (pronounced like Lewis), a town tucked into the green hills of the East Sussex South Downs.  It's perhaps an hour from London, and sometimes you can even get a direct train.

Speaking of which, the trains here are confounding.  The lines are privatized, so it's hard to get around and know which tickets to buy and which train line to take.  Taking a trip to the countryside usually means instead of getting one ticket for your journey, the ticket machine will spit out a whole stack of tickets that you will need.  What makes things more confusing is there are also "hobby lines", old steam train routes that the National Rail has discontinued, but a few devoted trainspotters keep alive with their own funds, and they usually only run once or twice a day on the weekends, and you have to really fish around to get a train schedule, and you can't buy those tickets on the National Rail website.  All and all, rail journeys here have the potential to be very confusing and elaborate, and it makes us pause and reminisce about just how great the French run their rail systems.

We found that this particular day, the trains were ultra-expensive direct (£50!), but for an additional 10 minutes added to your travel time, the price was just a fraction (£10!).  Sometimes you have to be a little creative in your journey.

The lovely little medieval town of Lewes was previously home to prehistoric and Roman and Anglo Saxon settlements, and a battle between Henry III and his angry, revolting Barons.  The layers upon layers of history here was astounding.  Also, on the 5th of November, they burn crosses during the Lewes Bonfire.  I am not kidding.  It is to commemorate the Protestants martyrs that were burned at stake here, but it's just alarming to see loads of burning crosses on the tourist brochures here.

It was early on a Sunday morning when we arrived, and we spent a good hour wandering the streets.  All the shops were closed and very few people were out, but I wanted badly to linger.

There's a thousand year old Norman castle at the top of the hill with lovely views.

Even the castle wasn't open yet, but you can walk up the hill and around it.  There's the ruins of an abbey and some adorable cottages and really nice views of the hills.

A very friendly kitty sat upon a stone wall, begging for attention and scratches.

I'm not a cat person at all, but lately I've encountered a few super friendly ones that have warmed me up a bit.  Plus, they are just so photogenic.

Anne of Cleeves had a house here, and kind of touchingly, Virginia Woolf:

Apparently, she never actually lived here, but she owned it for a while.  It was adorable and I could see how an impulse purchase might come about.

The town itself had a large amount of well-preserved ancient buildings, painted cheery colors and squeezed up against the barely-there sidewalk.

Most of the houses had plaques with the dates and their original purpose as a building, and any famous people who might have darkened the doorways at some point, including Thomas Paine.  I resisted the urge to start chanting "USA!  USA!  USA!" outside the house.

It was closed, but the half-timbered house was called "The 15th-Century Bookshop" and it looked suitably adorable and my noseprints marred the windows as I did a full-face press to check out what they had going on inside.  A weakness for tiny cramped bookshops and the lack of bookshops with character in this country has left me feeling a bit sad.  Lewes does a good trade in tourism, but it also seemed like people actually lived and worked here, and they didn't take the ye olde thing too far.  

After some debate about our location, we headed due west to pick up the Southdowns Trail for an amazing day of hiking.  I'll have more about that later, but I have decided to undertake the entire 100 mile trail, but perhaps not in linear order.  The good news is that eventually, I'll be back in Lewes to finish up the hike!  I can't wait, I feel like there are some really fantastic pubs that weren't open early on a Sunday that needed to be warmed up.