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!  

NDW Day 5: Oxted to Otford

With the gorgeous spring, the brilliant summer and the sun cream laden autumn, I thought winter hiking would be a breeze.  A little colder perhaps, with shorter days, but how could it be any different?  I looked forward to some brusque and chilly walks.

Not so?

I crossed the M25 and headed up the hills of Oxted Downs to find the trail a bog.

I hadn't thought of this.  I mean, it has rained quite a bit off and on but there have been lovely sunny afternoons, but with the dim presence of the sun so low on the horizon, there is no way for all the water to dry up.

It made for exhausting hiking.

When I wasn't hopping over puddles, my boots became so heavy with caked-on mud that I started to think of them as cement shoes.  Plus, every step you took you slipped back a bit, meaning there was a lot of extra effort involved.  Ten miles soon began to feel like 20 at the end of the day, and I really feel like I earned anything I chose to consume when I was safely back in the SW9.

No matter though- the grass is still blindingly green, the trail devoid of humanoids, and the motorway still humming a tune to keep you company.  Also, I feel perfectly safe walking it on my own.

What was special about this day was the crossover from the county of Surrey into Kent.  A milestone of sorts on an otherwise unremarkable day of hillwalking.

Oh, yes.  I've gotten very lazy about carrying my big DSLR on these jaunts, as nothing has been striking me as notable and picturesque.  Green fields, rolling hills and a motorway.  Sometimes I see green woodpeckers, and always kestrels and buzzards.  Pics taken on the celly just aren't as good.  I think maybe the iphone has better optics than the Galaxy 5, which does take remarkably good macro shots, but really rubbish in the great outdoors.

I will finish this trail eventually.  It's always surprisingly pleasant to be strolling on, but just not stunning the way the Highlands of Scotland might be.

oh yes, special effects makes shitty pictures so much better.

North Downs Night Walk

How did I celebrate the winter solstice this year?

With a night hike, of course!

After spending a weekend in Cornwall and Dartmoor (which I still can't be arsed to write about) I took advantage of clear skies and a full moon for to get my night-legs on- the mood reflecting off the water meant sleep was not an option, along with roommates that sounded like they were sawing a fence in two.  I do love the idea of night hiking- the quiet, the endless privacy, all the creatures that come out once the sun is down.  My love of walking doesn't really gel with the tiny amount of daylight this time of year.

A plan was made.  After being up way too late and eating way too much the night before (thanks, Christmas!) I got a relaxed late start to walking a lonely 16 mile stretch of the North Downs through Kent from Otford to Cuxton.  Normally, I would be horrified at the idea of finishing a hike in darkness, but with a new braveness, I packed a torch and powered up and down the steep, rolling downland and quiet forested paths.

For a trail so well-traveled for centuries and so very close to London, I rarely see anyone on it.  A dog walker here and there. Newland's Corner and Box Hill are both kind of packed, but once you get out of the car parks, you are by yourself on the outskirts of 8.3 million people.

I didn't even break for lunch- it wasn't terribly cold, but cold enough that the chill set in if I lingered.  As the woods darkened under clouds and the sun disappeared to usher in the longest night of the year, a beautiful stillness took over.

The sounds of owls calling greeted the dark, along with the loud squawks of pheasants roosting in the trees and their panicked flights to a safer patch of trees than one invaded by me.  But the owls!  I love them only because they are so elusive- I see them rarely, so hearing them is always thrilling for me, and hearing them in the quiet woods outside of London was even more fun.

Oh, and it never really got truly dark in the open...I could see the eerie pink glow of London illuminating the clouds in front of me, and the city of Rochester lit up the other direction.  The woods were proper dark though.  One foot in front of the other, I slowly made my way through mud and over tree roots.

I used my torch rarely- to check to make sure the way-marks were being read correctly, and to check my compass.  Going through fields proved challenging as it was easy to lose the trail, so I would find a spot on the horizon that lined up with the compass and follow it until a fence was hit.  It's hiking in England!  I was more concerned about having a torch so that cars could see me if I did a stretch along the roadside, which I did.  The one time I did lose the trail in woods, the crunch of deep leaves underfoot alerted me to the fact that I was on A trail, but not THE trail, and I was quickly able to correct (rather than take a more direct route to the train station, it turned out).

In the end:  success.  I found a pub (!) and while waiting for the train back to London, I had myself a glass of wine and some chicken liver pate to celebrate my newly found night vision.  I was exhausted.  16 miles with a couple steep climbs and I was knackered, and the last four miles were in the dark and by far the slowest I've walked in a while, but I found the concentration needed on a moonless night taxing as well as I had to really look for every step.  In total, it took me 6 hours and 20 minutes from station to station, which isn't bad time at all on a muddy winter trail, and a happy peaceful walk is the anecdote to a plethora of seasonal maladies.

Hope you had a fantastic solstice, and enjoy the return of the sun.  Oh, unless you are in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case: enjoy the waning daylight, suckers!

 

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.    

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.