NDW Day 2: Guildford to Westhumble

My quest to walk across England continues....

I returned to Guildford early one morning and took off down the River Wye and rejoined the North Downs, dodging Orb weaver spiders the whole way.

The trail was a bit wilder once out of Guildford, and I soon climbed up to St Martha's church.  I had been here before- we had taken a jaunt up here on one of countryside walks last spring.

The trail was devoid of people- aside from the bit by Newland's Corner, where there is a huge car park.  This ended up being a really nice bit of trail that I would be happy to go back and re-hike, with views across the hazy valley to the South Downs.

Oh!  And has anyone ever seen this before?

It is two trees, CONNECTED!  That bottom branch is growing from both trees!  They were both quite large trees.  I've just never seen anything like this.

There were lots of beautiful old woodlands to walk through: West Hanger, Shere Woodlands, Netly Park.  I saw a golden Hazel Dormouse scurry by, and some science types were out studying the flora.  What a lovely bit of lonely trail!

The National Trust keeps up a good bit of what I walked through, and they maintained the chalk grassland, and I was soon blissfully hoofing it forward across the tops of the Downs.

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There were also quite a lot of pillboxes tucked into the hillsides...a defense against the perceived threat of the French.

Soon, Denby's came into view, with views of Box Hill.  I didn't stop for wine, but headed straight for the train station, where I had some lovely stuff from France sitting at home.

Tucked into the picked-over grapes, a roe deer fawn, patiently waiting for its mother:

Well, that was perfectly pleasant!  I would go back and hike that bit again- it was peaceful and the views were lovely.  Altogether, it was a rather lengthy 15 miles, so it was no small walk, but I was pretty knackered in the end.  

Baxter

I am the black cloud of Sandy Stream.  

I've been there maybe a dozen times over the years and never once saw a moose.  Seriously!  This is the one place in the entire state where you are pretty much guaranteed to have a moose sighting.  People come here on "Moose Tours", Baxter state park has special "Moose Pass" parking spaces, everyone and their mothers come here to see moose.

I've seen them plenty of moose in other places, but never in the one spot where they flock to like moths to a flame: Sandy Stream.

It's a quick walk through the woods from the car park, and then it's elevated walkway to get to the clear, sparkling pond.  There are a few places to duck off the trail and take in the scene, which is just lovely.  A close-up of Katahdin and the knife edge to Hamlin Peak, South Turner mountain, and huge swarths of pine forest creating inky-black patchworks.

I did see plenty though.  Not only is it just a lovely peaceful place to relax in the sun, I saw oogles of critters around the pond:  Beautiful, flashy ceader waxwings-

I love these chipper little birds.  They sit so obviously in the pine-tops and stay there for a while, so I can usually get better than usual shots of them with a normal camera lens.

The squirrels were so frantically putting away pinecones, they were loathe to get off the trail until you almost on top of them.  Little piles of pinecone shavings dotted the walkway.

The water was full of ducks: Goldeneyes, Black Ducks, loons.

An elegantly long-legged spotted sandpiper darted from rock to rock.

More waxwings!

As the sun got lower in the sky, the songbirds made their way out into the open for a drink, and tiny chickadees and warblers flitted their way to a prime spot for drinking.  Across the pond, I saw a kingfisher diving for, um, fish.

Along came a hairy woodpecker to bang his head on a tree for a bit.

And close enough for me to not need a zoom lens, a whitetail doe sauntered on past.  It's really amazing how diverse the fauna is here.  Sitting quietly in one place and soon you become near-invisible.  Well, that is until a large family from New Jersey come by and say "HEY, WHERE ARE THE MOOSE??  HAS ANYONE SEEN A MOOSE?  WERE DO YOU GO TO SEE A REAL MOOSE?  WE CAME ALL THIS WAY TO SEE A MOOSE" and I wanted to cry a bit.

I could have sat there all day, but we did show up to hike.  Despite the rangers warning us that "moose pass" meant to sandy stream and back only, we took a, ahem, detour.  Or, "we got lost, I swear!" and headed up to Whidden Pond.

It was weird to walk in dense forest!  One thing England doesn't have much of is primordial old-growth forest.  So much more dark and fragrant, and there were mushrooms popping up everywhere, with lots of rotting and fallen trees, dense underbrush, and a foreboding sense of certain doom if you ever ventured off the trail.
 
While I do love walking here in Maine, I would never undertake the Appalachian trail.   Not enough to see!  Just endless hundreds of miles of walking in the woods.  

No moose at Whidden, either.

It's a magic place in its own right.

We sheepishly made our way back to the car park in dusk and headed down the long, bumpy tote road back to civilization, peering out into the roadside ponds and bogs, hoping for a chance sighting.  

My record still stands.  There will never be a moose at Sandy Stream as long as I am there.  

Windsor

I've really been into the distance walking lately.  The lush green countryside and the daylight that stretches closer to bedtime really makes for great hiking, coupled with the fact that you will never have a chance to suffer from heatstroke.  Plus, these boots are made for walking, baby.  They are Keens.  They have not caused my toenails to fall off yet unlike some other hiking boots I've had in the past.  It's really ideal.    

I grabbed a train to Windsor.  I had a vague plan to see the town and perhaps visit the Queen's house, but I had stepped into an other-worldly zoo once off the train.

There was some sort of Scouts convention going on?  I guess?  I couldn't be bothered to find out what was really going on, but there were loads and loads of men, women and children dressed in what I would associate with boyscouts, except a lot of them were wearing kilts.  Also, some of them were quite aged.  Grandpascouts?

They were all gathered around the front of the castle, with much shouting and fanfare and picture-taking and confusion as the various groups were trying to sort each other out.

Instead of dallying around the castle, where all the scouts seem to be trying to get inside, I hit the park.

 In the cutesy old town below the castle, there was an inn that claimed Shakespeare slept there while writing "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in really floral, ye olde scripte.

Windsor is somewhat extraordinary for the amount of lawns surrounding it.  

I started walking....and walking...

Turing around gave good views of the castle.  This is the largest castle in the world, originally started as a Norman fortress by William the Conquer, and still in use as a Royal residence- this is the Queen's weekend home.  Not too shabby, eh?

The three mile stretch of lawn and trees and grazing land in front of the castle leads you up to a deer park, symbolic of the hunting forest the kings would have access to.

The lawn stretches all the way up to the Equestrian statue of George III, which was slowly getting slightly less small as I approached it in the pouring rain.

A lucky sighting:

A red kite, a forked-tail raptor that was considered a pest and hunted until near-extinction.  They have been re-introduced to England from a population in Wales and they seem to be doing quite well here.

There are beautiful old oak trees all over the park.  Sadly, dutch elm disease killed a lot of the original trees in the park, but they have tried to replant as much as possible.

There.  I made it.  Here's a view of the castle from three miles off:

 I kept walking though.  Beyond the statue, the park gets a bit wilder and turns into Windsor Great Park.

There are all these tiny but luxe cottages and farms in the Great Park.  A few roads crossed the park, but they were closed to public traffic.  It was mostly woods and farms, with more woods and farms on the other side of the road to shake things up a bit.

I encountered very few people in the park, most of whom seemed to be birdwatchers.  A few cyclist and quite a few people one horseback or in carriages.

It was all very peaceful and bucolic.

I walked for hours around the park before heading back through the deer park in the pouring rain.  

The castle seemed infinitely far away.  I could still be out there walking towards it, and never even know.

Eventually though, I did make it back.  I sat down with my GPS and figured I did at least 12 miles from train station to the end loop of Windsor Great Park and back.  I was stupid and didn't bring snacks or much water- I thought the park would have at least something in the way of food, but once you get out past the town of Windsor, there's nothing but park.  Towards the end, I was contemplating gnawing on a haunch of venison and trying not to envision the punishment for chewing on one of the Queen's deer.  I was perhaps a bit more headachy and tired than I should have been because of my oversite, but all was well.  Despite the rain, it was a perfectly pleasant day out, and only about 45 minutes outside of London to boot.