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!  

South Downs Trail Day 3: Winchester to East Meon

It might take a while, but I'm slowly chipping away at the South Downs trail on the weekends, depending if I can find accommodation on Saturday nights within a few miles of the trail.  The way the trail is set up, you can take a train in, walk for two days and come to another rail line to take you back to London.  The North Downs trail is a bit more connected: you can walk that one, with some planning, as day-hikes, but the South Downs is a bit more out of the way, and I like that.  

I started this hike early in the morning in Winchester, where the trail officially starts.  Despite warnings of doom and gloom and hail storms, it was a little soggy to start, but not bad. 

Winchester itself is slightly adorable, with beautiful old buildings and a Saturday morning market.

It also had a very famous Cathedral.  It's very low, with no huge bell tower.  In fact, I almost walked right past it as you can't really see it from afar like most Cathedrals.

You have to walk through Winchester to get to the trail head, so I stopped to look at some of the sights: ruined castles, ancient walls, beautiful cottages.

 Oh!  And the house where Jane Austen died.

She's buried in the Cathedral, of course.  I would have gone in but we were in for a loooong day of walking.

 Finally!  The trailhead.  Apparently, it considers the walk you had through Winchester your first mile, since the signpost starts at 99.

You have to cross a roaring superhighway via bridge, and then you are off into relative quiet.

Past a military training zone, which wasn't active on this day.

Looking back at Winchester...you can barely make out the Cathedral!  It's that low.

 The first part of this trail isn't known for being the best section.  It's mostly rolling farmland, with a few villages here and there and some country roads to dart across.  You walk across this for miles until you start hitting the real hills.

I kept hearing the loud buzz of quad bikes in the nearby woods, but something more ominous as well:

Seriously!  Tanks.  There was a whole course set up.  You can apparently learn to drive a tank at this place.

Once the tank and quad bike center was behind, the trail got better.

It was great birdwatching: I saw hawks, buzzards and kestrels all over the hillsides, and the woods were filled with song birds: wrens, chaffinches, goldfinches, robins, linnets, dunnocks and black caps.

Around mid-day, we hit Beacon Hill, and the trail started getting more South-Downsy, with big, sweeping hills and views.

 Far off, you can see the Isle of Wright on the horizon, along with the New Forest park in the south.  You could also see Portsmouth and Southhampton further away on the coast.

The day ended up being beautiful, and although the trail was quite muddy in places, it was perfect hiking.  

We hit the town of Exton about 12 miles in.  It was supposedly a great place to spend your first night, but I couldn't find accommodation there, so we had to keep walking to the next junction a few more miles down the trail.

Through more mud, and then a climb over the next big hump of Winchester Hill.  The fields were full of wildflowers and the hillsides dotted with sheep.

There is a large bronze-age fort and dwellings on the top of this hill, and for good reason.  You could see to the sea, and the surrounding hillsides.  There's no way to sneak up this hill.  All that remains of it is a big earth wall and ditch and some scattered rocks.

The views in the late-afternoon sun were spectacular.

Finally, after about 80 runners passed us who were full-out running and doing the entire 100 miles trail as a relay race, we started going down into another valley to the tiny hamlet of East Meon to our accommodation.  There, past a lazy river and a cow farm, we found our little renovated pig shed quite cozy.

We covered all of 18 miles, which took us most of 9 hours to complete (with an hour break for lunch).  The shed owners were kind enough to drive us the mile into town for dinner at the only pub in town, which was ancient and friendly, and next to the 12th century church with the downs rearing up behind it.  The town seemed lovely, and we walked back to the shed in the dark in our flip-flops afterwards, and slept like rocks.