NDW Day 4: Merstham to Oxted

Now for the boring bit of the trail.

I was kind of dreading this part of the hike that closely follows the M25, the enormous ribbon of motorway that encircles the city of London.  I guess having a trail with such easy access to the city means these small inconveniences are bound to happen.  

I couldn't have picked a better day for it- late October and I'm still putting on SPF.

However, the one wrench in my plan was that I didn't get an earlier start.  I was planning on knocking 20 lonely miles out, but I reached the halfway point a little after 1pm....meaning I would have walked the last miles in the dark.  I quit after a mere 9 miles of walking rather then deal with that.  The clocks were set back last weekend and I just haven't adjusted yet, but the sun is dead and gone by 5pm now.

The trail was a little boggy in places but it climbed and stayed on the ridge for most of the walk, and I did enjoy myself.  You couldn't as much see the motorway as much as you could hear the constant drone of it at the foot of the hill.  Visions I had of walking right next to the road ended up being false, and it was a pretty countryside walk, if not a little noisy.

And looky there!  You can see London, sprawled out in front of you from the top of your first hill.

 Rather foolishly, I did not bring my camera, so these are all from the phone as I thought I would just end up with a lot of pictures of semi trucks.   So, pictures aren't the best today.

I had the trail to myself, too.  I saw a handful of people on horseback at one point, and bumped into one other through hiker doing day trips from London.

It was just so pleasant out,  I thought I was being rather pokey, but I ended up doing a respectable 2.6 mph.  If I kept that up without stopping to rest the dogs, I would have made it to Otford just after sunset.  Instead, I turned off to Oxted and took the train back to London.   Despite the beautiful late-October weather, the trail had turned off Oxted downs and was in site of the M25 for a long stretch, and I just wasn't inspired to keep going.

Not the most amazing day of walking, but any day walking in the countryside beats anything else I could think of doing, so it was all around a winning sort of day.  Plus, those half-hour train rides are adding up to be a rather spectacular lace shawl.

NDW Day 3: Box Hill to Mersham

Another beautiful autumn day for a walk...back up my old friend/nemesis, Box Hill.  

I left the Westhumble Station and picked the trail back up at the Box Hill car park, which had about 200 school kids getting ready to trek it up the hill, teachers in tow.  I practically ran up the Hill just to get ahead of the squacking mass of giggles and screeches, my feet barely touching the stepping stones.  

Box Hill was just as steep as the last time I climbed it, but starting at the Stepping Stones side proved a little easier since they just had a giant staircase the entire way up.

And the views, ah the views!  What a perfectly brilliant day to be out!

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Once I got past Box Hill, the crowds thinned and I once again had the trail to myself for most of the day, aside from an occasional dog walker.

The walk was rather nice- it went past a ghost of a Lime Works and quarry, then up a steep beswitchbacked trailed up Colley Hill, then it stayed up high and went through a few National Trust meadows the rest of the day.

The only downside being that the M25, the main ring road that circles London, was roaring down at the bottom of the hill.

I stopped for lunch under a tree with amazing views stretching all the way to the South Downs, and put a few rows in on a pair of socks I've been chipping away at on my train rides out to the trail:

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And hey, I'm only 66 miles away from Dover!  That's probably how the crow flies, but it's not too far off the walking distance.  The North Downs is unique in the fact that it has a loop at the end- you can go North to Canterbury (as any good pilgrim should) or South and walk along the chalk cliffs to Dover, or just do the whole loop if it pleases you.  It's like a choose your own adventure book.

I did stumble upon the Millennium Stones, a set of standing "stones" in a field for the ages to wonder about.  Although...the fact that the artists' mission statement is on the internet means that it probably won't be a future place of pagan worship.

I stopped to pick berries and to give an old longears a good scratch:

....then ended my hike in the town of Merstham, a busy town of intersecting roads right on the M25.  It suddenly became a point of stress that I had to cross several busy roads to get to the train station, and I seemed to be the only stinking hippie coming off the trail this town had seen in a while.  It was warm enough on this day to really get my fragrance up after two hill climbs, and the tube ride back into London was lovely as everyone gave me plenty of elbow room/armpit wafting room.

So, the next stretch of trail I've been dreading: it near 20 miles (but not terribly hilly) from Mertsham to Otford.  It's not the distance, it is the fact that the M25 does not leave your site the entire time.  I want to have the personal satisfaction of having walked the entire trail, but I don't want to really spend 20 miles shadowing one of the busiest roads in England.

What to do?

Procrastinate.

After that?

Charge up the Ipod.  Put on the game face, get it over with.

I'll get to it one of these days.