South Downs Day 5: Petersfield to Cocking

Arriving back in London, I suddenly had to scramble for warm clothes.  The last two weeks of August ended up being dreary- cold and wet and windy for days on end.  Ah, this is the famous summertime weather I had been warned about.  How lucky I felt the June and July were spot-on perfect weather.  Although, it was hard to have sympathy when I'd ring up my friends from New York.  "It's hot and sticky and humid and SO HOT" and I'd be ah, I'm wearing a sweater and wool socks and I have the big down duvet on the bed.  

It had been a while since we hit the South Downs.  Finding accommodation on the trail has been kind of a problem, as we usually wait to see what the weather is predicted to be like before committing to a hike, and with only a handful of options trailside, it's easy to end up a little screwed.  

Luck would have it, and over a bank holiday weekend I found a room in the town of Cocking on a Sunday night.  We would strike out on Sunday morning from Petersfield, spend the night in Cocking, and make our way to the train station in Amberley on Monday.  Sure, there was a little rain in the forecast for Monday, but I figured it wasn't hiking in England until you've had a bit of a walking bath.

  

With cheery optimism, we set out from Petersfield.  The South Downs Way is a few miles south, near a hamlet called Buriton, but lucky for us, we could follow tree-lined footpaths in the countryside almost right away.

We came to a freshly mowed field that was awash with crows.  More than I maybe have ever seen.

They made a racket as we startled them and they collectively flew off.

But that was about all the noise we heard.

Kestrel

Buriton was slightly adorable, with thatched-roof cottages, an old church, and a duck pond.  I would have stopped to see if they had a pub (it's not a proper town unless it has a church and a pub)

 We didn't linger, and soon we were on the wide chalk hillsides on the South Downs.

It's been really amazing for us to be out here and see the changing landscape.  From the mud and bright greens of early spring, to the lush green summer, and now the harvested fields giving everything a golden glow.  

Across Harting Down, where we stopped for lunch on a handily-placed bench in the shade of some tall trees, with views over the valley and the North Downs.

The trail actually skirts around the next big hill, Beacon.  We debated the merits of the view versus "not actually doing the entire Southdowns trail" by leaving the trail for a mile, and began the trudge up the steep hill.  Completion certificate be damned!

It was so worth it- views to the Isle of Wight and the sea.

And....

we got a little airshow courtesy of the Red Darts.

We lazily made our way back down and re-joined the trail.

This is why I love the South Downs.  It's not difficult.  You have a big climb up the ridge when you start, and a climb down at the end of the day, but once you are on the ridge, you have mostly gentle elevation gains, unobstructed views, and a feeling you are far from everything.  It's just the most pleasant walking.   Plus, the chalk trail sheds water easily, so you are rarely in mud.  

We hit a little off-trail spot of interest, labeled on the OS map as the "Devils Jumps".  They ended up being a series of well-formed bronze age burial mounds.  That was just crazy- many thousands of years ago, people were cremated and buried here.

The skies were getting darker as we neared the village of Cocking.  An ominous humidity was hanging thick in the air.

I startled a group of pheasants who were busily doing the same thing that we were:

The blackberries were perfectly ripe weeks earlier than expected.  This might have been the slowest 14 easy miles we've ever had because of them.

We turned off the trail and walked the mile into the village of Cocking.  Looking back on the downs, what a tremulously elegant sight:

Cocking was a cute little village, and the name made me te-he-he every time I had to say.  We found a place of interest: a column of the villages' history.  It's too bad that it was so tall that we couldn't read anything near the top, but eh.  It seemed interesting.

And also kind of sad.

The B&B that we stayed had an adorable tea house.  You have to cross the cafe to get to your room.  The cakes proved too much for us, and we finished off our hike with a very English snack of Victoria Sponge and tea.  It was fantastic

It really made up for a dismal pub dinner.

South Downs Day 4: East Meon to Petersfield

Another beautiful day.  I explored the gardens around our pig shed before being treated to the full-english fried experience.  I try to be polite about it, but really.  No one can possibly eat that much.  

I tried my best to knock off some of the mud off my boots.  It is the heavy, thick clay mud that picks up gravel.  Pretty soon, you are hauling around cement bricks on your feet.

Back on the trail, with so much pretty green everything.

And sheep, of course.  These might be Shetlands?  Or maybe Jacobs.

They were smaller, and more woolly looking (literally!) than the other sheep we've seen.

There was quite a bit of road-side walking on this day, which is never a favorite thing.  The road did take us past a cafe and nature center called the Sustainability Center, so we stopped to check it out.

They had beautiful gardens and a leech field and some interesting symbiotic plantings, but nothing really prepared us for what we saw next.

They have a natural burial ground!

Instead of being pumped filled with formaldehyde and put in an airtight casket, advocates of Natural Burials get buried in wicker caskets where they can easily become part of the life cycle of the forest.  They had lovely little forest paths with grave sites marked simply with sticks and stones, and the forest is allowed to retake anything it needs, and there were benches where relatives could visit.  It was somber, but the forest was far more beautiful than any manicured cemetery I've ever seen.  It's an interesting idea.  I'd be curious to see if this catches on in more places.  It was a little morbid, but I found it touching and beautiful.

There was also a tap for hikers here.  These are always welcome, especially on such bright, hot days.

The great thing about hiking is that you can hike all morning, and then come to a road intersection and realize that if you had taken the road, you'd only be out two miles.  Trails don't always take the fasted route.

You can see the cute little church tucked into the downs at East Meon:

This wasn't a very long day of hiking anyway (well, in theory...) and we soon crested the hill overlooking the A3 motorway in Queen Elizabeth Country Park.  We were supposed to branch off the trail here and walk from Bruiton the three miles north to Petersfield, but we left the trail a bit earlier than we were supposed to and ended up being stuck on the wrong side of the A3 with no way to cross it.

We ended up walking back up the hill, and picking up some public footpaths down the north side of the hill, which seemed to solve the problem of cutting down our road-walking miles.

Which would have been fine, except we hit a point where the footpath didn't seem very often used.  It appeared on the map, we would see an occasional signpost.  We could see where we would end up, but the trail was almost completely overgrown.

The buzzards started circling.

Also, deep in the woods, there was a very tall fenced enclosure electrified with a car battery.  It could only mean one thing: someone was keeping velociraptors as pets.  

After crashing through some farmland and some forest and losing the footpath several times, we found a farmer who put us back on the right track again.  See what I mean?:

That's the trail!  It was chin-high and choked with weeds and filled with thorns and stinging nettles, with the superhighway running right next to you- no one had walked here in a while.  Once again hiking in capri cargos is a bad idea.  My legs were scratched and on fire.  Those last three miles ended up taking us much longer than they should have.  Taken the beaten path through town would have been a much more pleasant option.

Finally, we hit the road and a place where we could cross under the busy highway, and then we booked it into Petersfield.  We approached the train station just as the road gates began to close and the train pulled in right as our feet touched the platform, which was quite serendipitous as it didn't look like there was a pub nearby to kill an hour if we had to wait for the next.

It was a good day of hiking, aside from that nasty bit at the end.  We did the "worst" part of the Southdowns: passing industrial farms, a tank and quad-bike track, a military firing range and doing a fair bit of road-side walking.

The next leg promised to be more lovely hills and sweeping views.   I love this trail so much.